
diss J) J f6 

Book ' \^^<f 



( 'Op)i1glit N^ 



GOFYRir.HT DEPOSIT. 







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ORIENTAL 

RAMBLES 



BY 

GEORGE W. CALDWELL, M. D. 



ILLUSTRATED WITH 
NUMEROUS SNAP-SHOT PHOTOGRAPHS 



PUBLISHED BY 

G. W. CALDWELL, M. D. 

POUGHKEEPSIE, N. Y. 



LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
Twe Gopifs Received 

SEP 28 1906 

/C«»yr.f rtt Entry , 



COI»Y 



XXc, N». I 

iiii' 



Copyright 1906, by 
Dr. GEORGE W. CALDWELL. 

All rights reserved. 



INTRODUCTION. 

No excuse is offered for this volume and 
no apology is volunteered. The author did 
the best he could. 

It is not intended as a guide book or a 
romance, but merely as a true account of the 
events of travel and the points of interest as 
the ordinary traveler sees them and his 
camera portrays them, unhampered by the 
dry detail of figures, and ungilded by fancy. 



THE A. V. HAIQHT COMPANY, 
POUQHKEEPSIE, N. Y. 



CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I Across the Continent 9 

II The Pacific Voyage — An Ingenious Scheme 1 2 

III Japan — First Impressions 19 

IV Yokohama — ^Japan Awakened 22 

V Tokio — Odd Customs — The Yoshawara. 25 

VI The Emperor's Birthday — ^Japan Trium- 
phant 33 

VII Nikko and its Temples . . 37 

VIII Giant Idols — Miyanoshita, and a Trip to 

Hell. 45 

IX Kioto— In the Heart of Old Japan 51 

X Osaka — Japanese-English, and the Kobe 

Roosters 56 

XI Through the Inland Sea to Nagasaki — Say- 

onara to Old Japan 60 

XII Shanghai, Old and New 65 

XIII Hong Kong 73 

XIV Canton and the Cantonese 76 

XV The Flower Boats — Chinese Public Opinion 86 

XVI The Temple of Honan — How the Devils 

are Imposed Upon . 92 



6 Contents. 

CHAPTER PAGE 

XVII The Education of China 96 

XVIII Macao, the Monte Carlo of the Eastern 

Sea 102 

XIX Singapore *, 107 

XX Penang — Tropical Fruits no 

XXI Arrival at Colombo and a Sad Deception 114 

XXII In and About Colombo 120 

XXIII Kandy, and the Kandy Tooth. _ 126 

XXIV Calcutta — The Indian Bearer 134 

XXV Darjeeling and the Himalayas 140 

XXVI Benares, the Sacred City 149 

XXVII Lucknow and Cawnpore — The Indian 

Mutiny 163 

XXVIII Agra and the Fort of Akbar 169 

XXIX The Taj Mahal 175 

XXX Futtehpore-Sikree, The Deserted City . 179 

XXXI Delhi, the Delightful 184 

XXXII A Nautch Dance. 188 

XXXIII Jaipur and the Rajputs. 193 

XXXIV A Trip to Amber, and an Elephant Ride 197 
XXXV Bombay — The Caves of Elephanta. ... 202 

XXXVI The Indian Ocean and the Red Sea. . . 206 
XXXVII How We Broke Into Egypt— The Re- 
ward of Honesty 209 



CHAPTER 
XXXVIII 

XXXIX 

XI^ 

XLI 
XLII 

XLIII 
XLIV 

XLV 



Contents. 7 

PAGE 

Port Said to Cairo 216 

Cairo and the Mosques — The Philoso- 
pher Objects to Mohammedism .... 219 
Donkey Boy Diplomacy — Street Pictures 

— An Antique University 227 

From the Citadel. 234 

The Pyramids — The Philosopher Makes 

Some Discoveries , 238 

The Dervishes 242 

Memphis — Heliopolis — The Wisdom of 

the Egyptians 246 

Homeward Bound 250 



CHAPTER I. 

ACROSS THE CONTINENT. 

We Started westward in October. As we 
rolled through the beautiful Mohawk Valley 
glimpses from the car window of the sugar 
maples flaming with their autumn costumes 
of red and yellow caused just a little pang of 
regret for the glorious season we should miss. 
Perhaps in all the world we should see no 
more charming sight than that of the wood- 
bine, turned bronze and crimson, festooning 
the branches of the cedar or the pine tree. 
When Autumn drapes her gay bunting on 
the American hillsides all the world should 
pause and admire, but to us who see this car- 
nival of color every year it is so familiar that 
its beauties are not properly realized. So 
we travel, not only to see the wonders and 
beauties of other countries, but to make us 
more appreciative of our own. Change 
keeps the heart young. 

One does not fully comprehend what a 
country is ours until he travels across it. One 
cannot realize what progress and possibilities 
are ours unless he remembers that the country 



10 Oriental Rambles. 

through which he passes with its grain fields, 
its prosperous farm houses, its villages, its 
factories and its cities with their teeming 
millions and stupendous commerce were, 
twenty-five, fifty or seventy-five years ago, 
only barren plains, prairies or deserts occupied 
by wild beasts and savages. 

On the Oregon Short Line in Idaho there 
is a railroad eating station built of slabs. In 
the yard was a bear chained to a stake. A 
few Indians, wrapped in blankets, asked the 
passengers for money and got an assortment 
of things including temperance lectures, chew- 
ing tobacco, profanity and cold stares. Whis- 
key would have pleased them better. The 
noble red men have fallen on grievous times. 
Over beyond the sand hills millions of acres 
of wheat fields have taken the place of their 
rabbit pastures. Artesian wells, mammoth 
water reservoirs and canals are turning the 
deserts into gardens. Peach trees grow where 
the cactus bristled, and alfalfa flourishes 
where erstwhile withered the sage brush that 
was not even fit for goose stuffing. 

After the long, hot and dusty ride through 
the brown Rocky Mountain States, the 
plunge into the damp, cool and green coast 
strip of Oregon and Washington was most 



Oregon and JVashington. ii 

refreshing. It is indeed another country. 
The stately pines, the rushing waterfalls, the 
heights and depths are more majestic than 
those of the Adirondacks, or any other east- 
ern region. There is a quality to the west- 
ern atmosphere that bids one breathe, and 
expand, and grow, grow, grow. There is 
energy in the air. All nature feels it. The 
trees grow larger and taller than elsewhere. 
In October, in the wild forest, I saw red and 
white clover and grasses of heavier growth 
than can be found in the cultivated meadows 
of the east. The soil is of incredible depth 
and richness. At the green grocer's store 
were exposed for sale vegetables and fruits 
that would win every prize in an eastern coun- 
ty fair, and yet they are ordinary here, and so 
cheap that it is foolish to go hungry. Roses 
grow like trees on the Pacific coast, and helio- 
trope hedges are ordinary. The poor little 
eastern flowers that are reared so tenderly 
in hot houses, and transplanted so carefully 
in the spring, and praised so proudly when 
promise of a bud appears are, after all, only 
insignificant dwarfs when compared to the 
sturdy Pacific variety. The west and far 
northwest have only begun to grow. The 
possibilities are enormous. 



CHAPTER II. 

THE PACIFIC VOYAGE AN INGENIOUS 

SCHEME. 

At Vancouver the Canadian Pacific Rail- 
road Steamer "Empress of India" awaited 
the Enghsh mail which was rushing across 
the continent from Montreal twenty-four 
hours late. The "Empress" looked "kind 
and sound in wind and limb" as* she floated 
her graceful five hundred feet of length in 
the waters of Puget Sound. She was white 
and clean when we went aboard, and no one 
would suspect she could be restless and 
"roily" and "pitchy" and inconsiderate as 
she proved herself in the north Pacific a few 
days later. We sailed at five in the after- 
noon and got a fleeting glimpse of pine-bor- 
dered shore, tree-clad mountain ridges and 
craggy mountain tops before darkness closed 
upon us. 

The captain was going to sail over the top 
of the earth in order to get around it quicker. 
In other words, he was to take the shorter 
northern circle to Yokohama. We had 
hoped the water would be more level at the 

IS 



^^Not Seasick But Slightly Indisposed/' 13 

top but were disappointed. My personal 
feelings are of no importance, whatever, but 
my friend Phil, the Philosopher from Phila- 
delphia, lost his appetite among other things 
early on the voyage. He denied that he was 
seasick, but complained that the food was 
not suitable for his philosophical stomach. 
He spent much time in enumerating the 
things he did not know about navigation. 
The item that troubled him most was, why 
the ship should be made to reek of disinfect- 
ants when any other odor would be prefer- 
able even if more deadly. 

The passengers who were not seasick con- 
ducted themselves in a proud and puissant 
manner. They went to the dining saloon 
regularly and brought back the odor of boil- 
ed pork and cabbage. They laughed im- 
moderately and looked perniciously cheerful 
when there was really nothing but sadness 
and nausea on deck. Our German friend, 
wrapped in blankets in his steamer chair, ex- 
pressed our sentiments exactly, when he said 
as he gazed sadly at the tossing sea, rising 
and falling with the rolling of the boat: — 
*'I haf no appetite for such an ocean." 

There was a war hero on board. The sword 
in his strong right hand had mowed down 



14 Oriental Rambles. 

rows of Philippinos. The gatling gun had 
no terrors for him. Of the bolo he was not 
afraid, but as he lay wrapped in blankets in 
a steamer chair on the windward side of the 
deck the mere mention of cabbage fried with 
pork would send him flying to the rail where 
he would tremble and writhe until all was 
lost save honor. 

On shipboard people soon become ac- 
quainted. The iceberg social fortifications 
with which people surround themselves at 
home melt away at sea. Any one who does 
not become sociable on a long voyage is not 
merely frozen but mummified. 

When my friend, Phil, the Philosopher 
from Philadelphia, reeled up on deck one 
morning he saw a white-faced young woman 
with her head in the lap of a pale and melan- 
choly-looking young man. They were ap- 
parently bride and groom. The Philoso- 
pher's tender heart was touched and he said, 
"Madam, you look ill. Isn't there some- 
thing I can do for you?" 

"No-o," she moaned. 

"Can't I get you a cup of bouillon?" 

"No-o." 

"Well, your husband, he looks ill too; 
can't I get something for him?" 



Burial at Sea, 15 

"No-o, and he isn't my husband, and I 
don't know who he is." 

The best that can be said of the days of 
this voyage is that they passed with great 
regularity and solemnity. They were alike 
in being cold, damp, dreary and sunless. We 
passed within sight of some of the Aleutian 
Islands and they did not appear cheerful. 
There were fire drills occasionally to show 
what would happen if the ship burned up. 

The crew was largely Chinese. All the 
cooks, dining saloon stewards, and room 
stewards were Chinese. The passengers were 
from everywhere. There was a Chinese 
Mandarin going home under a cloud. In 
some way he had displeased the Empress 
and there were strong probabilities that when 
he should reach Pekin a separation would oc- 
cur in the neighborhood of his Adam's ap- 
ple. The Empress has such frolicsome ways 
with those who please her not. He looked 
very dignified in his blue silk robes and em- 
broidered skirt, but his mustache had a mel- 
ancholy droop and his eye a wistful sadness. 

On the fifth day out there was a burial at 
sea. An English lady seventy years of age, 
traveling around the world with her daugh- 
ter for pleasure, had suddenly expired on 



1 6 Oriental Rambles. 

deck the day before, and just as the cold 
morning light was struggling through the 
fog the services of burial were held. A Brit- 
ish flag was draped over a human form, 
wrapped and weighted, lying on a plank by 
the rail. The ship's officers stood in line 
around it; the engines stopped their throb- 
bing; the giant propellers ceased churning 
the brine into foam; the ship drifted, and 
all was strangely still. A passenger clergy- 
man read the burial service of the Church 
of England, while the cold and foggy winds 
from the north Pacific blew his vestments 
about him. All heads were bowed, and at 
the words *'to the sea we commit her body," 
sailors tilted the plank and the silent form 
glided from under the flag and with a splash 
disappeared in the sullen waters. There 
was a clang of bells, the great propellers 
resumed their monotonous grind and the 
ship once more moved westward through 
the turbulent sea. 

When we were in the middle of the Pa- 
cific, two thousand miles from America or 
Japan, and over a mile to the nearest land 
(straight down) a strange thing happened. 
We mislaid a day — ^lost it. At the one hun- 
dred and eightieth degree of longitude we 



A Day Suddenly Disappeared. 17 

missed it. It suddenly disappeared. At 
thirteen minutes after two o'clock Sunday it 
instantly became Monday at the same hour. 
The only way to recover it was to go back 
and pick it up. 

The Philosopher had a new scheme for 
perpetual youth. All he needed was an air- 
ship that would sail around the world in 
twenty-four hours. Then, by sailing west- 
ward, and keeping under the sun, night 
would never come, and so no days could be 
charged up against his age. 

"But," I objected. "You will trip up on 
this line and lose a day. This one hundred 
eightieth meridan was evidently put here to 
foil just such a scheme." 

"It wouldn't foil me," he declared. 'T 
wouldn't cross it at all; I'd go around it." 

At last we sighted land and after steam- 
ing along the coast for several hours came to 
rest in the crowded roadstead of. Yokohama. 
Among the ships of many nations that were 
in the harbor were some of the Japanese war 
vessels that surprised the world by their victo- 
ries over the Russians. Steam tenders landed 
us at the dock and after a few formalities 
with the polite customs officials we stepped 
into jinrikishas, and the little brown men 



1 8 Oriental Rambles. 

with bare muscular legs drew us at a rapid 
trot along the street skirting the water front 
to the Grand Hotel, and the first stage of 
our trip was over. 



CHAPTER III. 

JAPAN FIRST IMPRESSIONS. 

From my window at the Grand Hotel I 
looked out upon a strange sight. It was in- 
deed Japan. At the hotel entrance a group 
of rikisha men awaited their fares as cab- 
men do in America, but they were not like 
the crowding banditti that shout "Keb? 
Keb?" in the face of a foreigner at the sta- 
tions or docks in New York, for when one 
emerges from the hotel these rikisha men 
will merely smile, and bow, and point to their 
respective rikishas without offering any physi- 
cal violence. 

If you should step into one of the vehicles, 
the lucky owner will bow again, and placing 
himself between the shafts will run as swift- 
ly as Mercury on the wings of the wind and 
you arrive at your destination with a flourish, 
and as quickly as with a horse. For the ride, 
including the politeness, only five cents is 
asked, and ten expected. In this cold season 
their short muscular legs were encased in skin 
tight blue cotton trousers and they wore 
jackets of the same material, but in the hot 

19 



20 Oriental Rambles. 

season they divest themselves of much more 
than the law would allow in America. 

There were children in the street; myriads 
of them. They seemed to run in pairs, for 
nearly every urchin had a baby strapped to 
its little back and the two were inclosed in a 
single padded kimona. The effect was a lit- 
tle startling at first, for it appeared that for 
every pair of legs there were two heads. It 
was sometimes puzzling to tell which head 
belonged to the legs. The children looked 
like the Japanese dolls that are sold in Ameri- 
ca. They had the chubby round faces, shav- 
en scalps, (excepting the top knot,) almond 
shaped, bright eyes, and flat small noses of 
the dolls. And how they could run, — but 
not faster than their noses. 

Phil, the Philosopher, said that hereafter 
his donations to the missionary fund would 
be limited to handkerchiefs. 

There was a canal at the side of the hotel 
and on it passed the curious sanpans or boats 
propelled with an oar or sweep at the stern. 
Larger ones were rigged with square sails 
upon which were painted the criss-cross puz- 
zles that serve as characters of the language. 

Over beyond on the brow of the hill stood 
a temple, grey with age. The carved wooden 






^ 
^ 




Double Headed Children. 21 

dragons on the gables and rafters glared 
across the expanse of tiled roofs. Nearby 
was a solitary pine tree. Its long branches 
stretched across the temple entrance as if 
in benediction upon the natives as they passed 
in and out. It was just at sunset. The sky 
was a riot of colors. From the temple came 
the deep tones of a gong that lingered in the 
air with mellow reverberations. 



CHAPTER IV. 

YOKOHAMA JAPAN AWAKENED. 

The modernization of Japan began only 
fifty years ago when Parry anchored his im- 
posing fleet in Mississippi Bay near Yoko- 
hama, and by the most clever diplomacy ne- 
gotiated a treaty by which certain ports were 
to be opened to the commerce of the world. 
This terminated the policy of non-communi- 
cation with the outer world to which Japan 
had adhered for two hundred years or more. 

During these fifty odd years Japan has ad- 
vanced from the feudal form of government, 
similar to that of the middle ages in Europe, 
to a government with one of the most liberal 
constitutions of the world. From the dif- 
ferent countries she has chosen the best models 
for adoption into her commmercial and politi- 
cal life. She has won two great wars on land 
and sea. She has earned and compelled the 
consideration and respect of all nations. 

When the Japanese were known only as 
the greatest artists in the world we consid- 
ered them heathen, but now that they have 
proven that they can also fight, and have 
killed and maimed hundreds of thousands of 

22 



The Test of Civilization, 23 

Russians, and taken by force countries that 
did not belong to them, we acknowledge 
them civilized, and award them a place in the 
family group of nations. 

Those who would see Japan with the pic- 
turesque and romantic atmosphere of the an- 
cient times should go at once. The electric 
lights will soon make the paper lanterns seem 
dim, and the trolley cars and the automobiles 
will given even the rikisha men a hard race. 
The kimonas are passing. The ugly derby 
hat and other European abominations are 
more and more in evidence. The Japanese 
long to learn and advance in European civil- 
ization. Clothes help the cause along al- 
though the people lose in appearance and 
comfort by the change. 

One may well spend several days wander- 
ing about the streets of Yokohama. It is 
all so new and so delightful. 

The Benton Dori, and Honcho Dori are 
streets in the native quarter devoted to the 
curio trade, and there one may wander for 
hours studying the strange and beautiful 
goods of the olden time. Some may not be 
as old as they look, for real antiques are 
getting scarce. However who would object 
to a really beautiful antique merely because 



24 Oriental Rambles. 

it is new! Certainly not Phil, the Philoso- 
pher. He has a passion for antiques. He 
has acquired a nice wooden idol with an ex- 
tended palm, which is, strange to say, wrong 
side up. That is sufficient evidence that it is 
not genuine. 

Poor Phil, in Egypt he purchased a mum- 
mified sacred hawk, guaranteed to be several 
thousand years antique, but alas, it proved too 
new and he had to throw it overboard at sea. 

The curio shops are open in front to the 
streets and you are welcome to enter, and 
wander about, and inspect to your heart's con- 
tent. The shop-keeper bows, and smiles, 
and sucks the air through his teeth in the 
most polite "Jappy" fashion, and asks ten 
times as much as he expects to get. 

The labor expended on some trifle of carv- 
ing or embroidery is so great, and the price 
so small that one is tempted to buy and buy 
until extra baggage accumulates and bids 
him stop. Ivories, wonderfully carved — 
porcelains, exquisitely painted- — bronzes, 
cloisonne, lacquer, ancient arms, and em- 
broideries that are marvels of beauty, fas- 
cinate and nothing but the joy of possession 
will satisfy the traveler. 



^ 






n 



^ 

o 



s 




CHAPTER V. 

TOKIO ODD CUSTOMS THE YOSHAWARA. 

A few hours railroad ride across the rice 
fields brings one to Tokio, the capital. Ja- 
pan being a mountainous country with a 
large population every spot of tillable land 
is cultivated to the highest degree. The soil 
is broken, not by plows or spades, but by a 
long heavy hoe. The lands that can be 
flooded are planted by hand to rice, and the 
elevated spots and terraces to vegetables. 
The rice when ripe is reaped, bundled and 
hung on bamboo poles or trees planted for 
the purpose, to dry. When cured the rice 
is threshed by women who draw the straw, 
a few spears at a time, through iron combs 
and then winnow the grain in the wind or 
with hand bellows. The straw is used for 
thatch, rope making, sandals, paper, etc. 
Nothing is wasted. Vegetables are thickly 
planted. Every inch of soil is utilized. A 
monster radish, called the daikon, is one of 
the staple foods. 

The cottages of the farmers reflect the ar- 
tistic and aesthetic nature of the people. 



25 



26 Oriental Rambles. 

Humble though the home may be — its two 
or three small rooms constructed of straw, 
bamboo and paper — there will be a minature 
flower garden — only four or five feet square 
perhaps, but complete with walks, lakes, 
arched bridges and with trees and flowers 
dwarfed to correspond to the scale. 

The Japanese are liberal advertisers and 
the landscape is enlivened with larger signs 
than seen in America extolling the virtues of 
beer, biscuits and tobacco. Japanese char- 
acters made of painted stones on a distant 
hillside remind the traveler what to take for 
"that tired feeling," 

Railroad station scenes are always inter- 
esting. Japanese women run when going to 
or from a train. Short steps are required 
because their knees are bound by tight 
kimonas. The scuffling of sandals that drag 
at the heel, and the clatter of wooden clogs 
become familiar sounds. Japanese crowds 
are always good natured. In fact good na- 
ture and courtesy are the characteristics most 
in evidence. They lead the simple life, live 
close to nature, and have a keen sense of the 
humorous as well as the artistic. I have seen 
grown men rest in their labor of carrying 
brick, take a top from a pocket and spin it 



Japanese Patriotism. 27 

with the merriment of children for a few 
minutes, then resume their work. It is strange 
that such gentle people should be such in- 
vincible warriors. They have never known 
defeat, and in the hour of their greatest vic- 
tories they have surprised the world by the 
modesty of their demands, their kindness to 
prisoners and their generosity to their fallen 
foe. 

Intellectually the Japanese are at least 
equal to any race. They are better students. 
Education is universal. Their schools are 
on model lines. Children may be seen in the 
school yards drilling in military tactics. 
Their civilization is not new. The Japanese 
enjoyed books, arts and silks while Euro- 
peans were still savages dressed in skin. 

To the Japanese patriotism is not only 
the greatest virtue, but the fundamental prin- 
ciple of their Shinto religion. The old Sa- 
mauri class, or soldier knights, considered 
that their lives belonged to their feudal 
lords. Feudalism has been abolished and 
the clans disbanded, but the spirit of Samauri 
still lives in the hearts of the people. Any 
citizen would consider it an honor to die for 
his country. During the war there was no 
lack of volunteers. The most dangerous 



28 Oriental Rambles. 

duty was sought as a favor. Women sent 
all the males of the family that would be 
taken. Women did the men's work and even 
attempted to reach the fighting line. It is 
said that women after giving their men and 
their money even sold themselves to the 
Yoshawara to get more money to give to the 
cause. 

The Yoshawara is a city within the city. 
It has high inclosing walls with a single gate. 
Within this wall are many streets of three or 
four story houses. There are said to be 
twenty thousand women in the Yoshawara. 
They are sold for a certain period for pur- 
poses of public immorality and when that 
period has expired they return to their 
homes, marry and do not suffer the social 
ostracism that would follow such a life in 
America or Europe. If necessary for the 
support of parents it is considered a filial 
duty, and a pious act, for a daughter to sell 
herself to the Yoshawara, that her parents 
may not want. They are more often sold 
by parents or guardians. The Yoshawara 
women are known by their obie, or broad 
sash, being tied in front instead of the back 
as respectable women wear it. They are 
licensed and supervised by the government. 



Social Standards. 29 

The Japanese take the position that since the 
social evil must and does exist in all coun- 
tries either openly or secretly, it is better, 
sociologically, that it be sequestered, and 
under medical and police control. 

Most travelers, men and women, do not 
think the visit to Tokio complete unless they 
walk or ride through the streets of the Yos- 
hawara In the evening. The streets are 
brilliantly lighted and thronged by an order- 
ly crowd. The street floor of the houses are 
open to the sidewalk except for a grating. 
Behind this grating with a setting like a 
stage of a comic opera are groups of Mus- 
mees in resplendent kimonas with faces paint- 
ed white with rice powder, lips crimsoned, 
and hair wonderfully arranged in puffs and 
wings stiff with paste and glittering with tin- 
sel hair pins. A half dozen girls may be ar- 
rayed in lilac kimonas, a half dozen in rose 
and another bevy in dove color. They 
amuse themselves by smoking the universal 
long-stem small pipes that hold tobacco 
enough for only two or three puffs, when the 
ashes are knocked out on the side of the 
charcoal brasier that serves also as a hand 
warmer. Others may be playing on the 
seimsen — a form of guitar. They are pic- 



30 Oriental Rambles, 

turesque, in no way vulgar or rude, and are 
much amused at the efforts of foreigners to 
say the few words of Japanese they think 
they know. 

Many Europeans sojourning in Japan 
contract Japanese marriages, taking advan- 
tage of the extremely easy divorce system 
which requires no legal formalities. In spite 
of the fact, that marriage may be dissolved 
at the good pleasure of the husband, such 
separations are extremely rare among the 
Japanese themselves. There a man is truly 
"master in his own house." No matter how 
wrong her husband may be a wife must al- 
ways consider him right, and his will as law. 
There can, therefore, be no quarrelling or 
bickering in a Japanese family. In spite of 
this strange condition the women do not 
seem to have discovered how unhappy they 
are, but appear the merriest and happiest 
women in the world. In spite of all these 
precautions taken for their protection, Jap- 
anese men are led around by the cord on the 
heart, or pushed along with a club on the 
back, by women just as they are in other 
countries. 

The Japanese are passionately fond of 
flowers. Business men and all classes of so- 




A Tragedy in Chrysanthemums. 




In Theatre Street. 



The Chrysanthemum Show. 3^ 

ciety suspend duties to make a holiday in hon~ 
or of the cherry blossoms. When the wistaria 
blooms, or the plums blossom, or the chrysan- 
themum blooms, flower festivals are held. 
All the phases of nature are watched with 
interest. Their admiration for nature 
amounts almost to worship. Family crests 
are usually conventional designs of flowers, 
for instance the Shoguns crest is three leaves 
of the hydrangea inclosed in a circle. The 
Emperor's is a sixteen petaled chrysanthe- 
mum. 

Late in October there was a chrysanthe- 
mum show in Ueno Park. It was more like 
an exposition. Innumerable banners flut- 
tered from forests of bamboo poles and dec- 
orated the entrances to the booths that 
crowded each side of the street. A ticket- 
seller at each booth loudly proclaimed the 
superior merits of his show and sold for a 
penny a wooden ticket large enough to be 
worth that for firewood. He also presented 
a program and among the Japanese adver- 
tisements I noticed a cut of a large bottle 
with the legend in English "Try Scott's 
Emulsion." 

The chrysanthemums themselves were not 
as large as those grown in hot houses in 



32 Oriental Rambles. 

America, but they were displayed in wonder- 
ful quantities and strange designs. They 
were used principally to cover set pieces in 
tableau. Entire scenes from the theatre, 
with all the characters made of blooms, were 
set on circular stages that revolved at short 
intervals, battle scenes, and mythological 
legends being largely represented. There 
was a striking tableau of a maiden with a 
wax face and chrysanthemum kimona, stand- 
ing under a blooming cherry tree, bidding 
good-bye to a floral soldier, with a floral Fuji 
in the background. It seemed to be a glori- 
fied Eden Musee in flowers. There was a 
naval battle scene with chrysanthemum bat- 
tleships in deadly combat, in which, of course, 
the Russian chrysanthemum ships were sink- 
ing In a chrysanthemum sea. 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE emperor's BIRTHDAY JAPAN TRI- 
UMPHANT. 

The Emperor's birthday, November third, 
is a holiday in Japan. The Emperor reviews 
the army in the morning and there is a state 
ball in the evening. 

At seven thirty o'clock we left the Imperial 
hotel in rikishas, proceeding at the usual 
brisk run to the field. The streets were 
swarming with people. Flags and bunting 
were floating to the breeze from every build- 
ing. Leaving the rikishas at the entrance 
we entered the field between columns of mili- 
tary guards, and proceeded to the part re- 
served for foreigners. This was near a cor- 
ner of a square of perhaps a half mile to each 
side. 

To the right was the Imperial tent, and 
spaces reserved for foreign diplomats. On 
the opposite side was drawn up the artillery 
and cavalry, while on the right and left sides 
were massed many regiments of infantry. 
This army of upward fifty thousand veter- 
ans stood as rigid as statues. They were 

33 



34 Oriental Rambles. 

awaiting the Emperor. Beyond the soldiers 
were thousands of citizens, men, women, and 
children, and in the distance Fugiyama 
reared its snowy cone twelve thousand feet 
into the blue sky. 

Through the gates came a multitude of 
notables — army and navy officers in brilliant 
uniforms, foreign diplomats and military at- 
tachees. The uniforms of all nations seemed 
to be represented. The Chinese officers and 
diplomats in magnificent brocades, satins 
and furs, and with peacock feathers in their 
caps were gorgeous as a millinery store. 

An hour passed. The soldiers stood like 
statues; not a military knee had moved; 
with all these thousands assembled there was 
not a sound ; not a voice ; not a murmur ; not 
a drum had rolled; not even an eye had 
rolled. 

At last there was a bugle note. An offi- 
cer extraordinarily braided with gold rode 
through the gate followed by a company of 
cavalry with lances. Then followed the Im- 
perial outriders, and the Imperial coach in 
which sat "The Dragon's Eye," the one 
hundred and twenty-first reigning descendent 
of the Sun Goddess — The Mikado of Japan. 
Instantly all heads were uncovered. The 



The Military Review. 35 

Emperor, stern of visage, generous of girth, 
his strong intellectual face scantily bev/his- 
kered, looked every inch a king. He bowed 
kindly to the right and left as he passed 
rapidly to the Imperial tent. There he 
mounted a waiting horse and followed by a 
body of officers began the march at a walk 
around the square. The military band the 
while playing the national air, a solemn chant 
suggestive of the dead march from Saul. 

The circuit being completed he took a po- 
sition in front of his tent while the troops 
marched in review before him to the lively 
music with which they had gone to battle in 
Manchuria. 

The maneuvering of this immense body of 
men, horses and artillery with clock work 
precision and great rapidity was in itself a 
demonstration of its effectiveness and an ex- 
planation for is successes. There were no 
delays, no gaps, no hitches. They marched 
in close formation, double quick. The re- 
view was all over in a few minutes. A pow- 
erful army had passed. No wonder such an 
army could march around the Russians and 
strike where least expected. 

We left the field before the crowd dis^ 
persed to avoid the rush. In spite of that we 



3^ Oriental Rambles. 

were caught between two streams of humanity, 
but the crowd was good natured and orderly. 
The Japanese are probably the cleanest peo- 
ple in the world, both in their bodies and 
clothing. Consequently close crowding is not 
as abhorent as in some other countries. Pro- 
fane and vulgar words are not known, at 
least so the guide said. I hope this is true, 
but he also said there is no lying, which 
sounded Irish to the Philosopher. 

The policemen carried ponderous swords 
at their belts, but were punctiliously polite to 
the people. At one point the police were to 
hold back the crowd from passing through a 
certain street, but when the crowd broke 
through, the policemen bowed and allowed 
them to pass without breaking any heads, 
maiming any children, arresting any women, 
or using words that would cause the angels to 
put cotton in their ears. 



CHAPTER VII. 

NIKKO AND ITS TEMPLES. 

If there Is an enchanted forest it is Nikko. 
If castles could be conjured from the caves 
of magic, nothing more elaborate could be 
imagined than its temples. Nikko means 
"sun brightness" and there is a Japanese say- 
ing "Use not the word beautiful, until you 
have seen Nikko." Every turn in the av- 
enues of giant evergreens brings new and 
wonderful scenes, — rushing torrents, tink- 
ling cascades, mossy stone idols on ferny 
banks, temples, pavilions, pagodas or en- 
trancing views of mountains and valleys. 

In the dark and mysterious shade of an- 
cient pines are temples so elaborately carved, 
gilded and lacquered that they seem more 
like the jewel boxes of the Gods than the 
handiwork of man, and about them is 
that indescribable solemnity which casts a 
spell like that of the interior of a great cathe- 
dral. But cathedrals in cities are so palpa- 
bly artificial, while Nikko seems so near to 
nature that it might have grown as the flow- 
ers grow, and its temples have been crystal- 

37 



3^ Oriental Rambles. 

lized from the essence of beauty after a mil- 
lion years of refinement in the studio of na- 
ture. 

When one views St. Peter's in Rome, or 
St. Paul's in London, or the Temple of Kar- 
nak in Upper Egypt, words come freely 
enough — grand, imposing, enormous. But 
when one stands before that marble miracle 
of the Taj in India, or a tiny temple at Nik- 
ko, words fail. To them shall be paid the 
supreme compliment of silent awe. To them 
shall be admitted the defeat of words; but a 
rapture fills the soul, and the mind is hum- 
bled befitting an approach to the deity. Such 
creations are in themselves a worship as they 
were truly intended. Yet each of these we 
call heathen because they approach the deity 
by another road than the one we, ourselves, 
have constructed. Can the Great Spirit of 
Love — the Creator of Nature's laws — be so 
particular by what name he is addressed, or 
the form used in addressing him, provided 
all forms are equally sincere and worshipful? 

Before an image of Buddha a native was 
praying. He held in his hand a silken tassel 
and as he repeated a prayer he turned down 
a thread. There were hundreds of threads. 
His face denoted intense devotional concen- 



The Spirit and the Form. 39 

tration and a high degree of spirituality. He 
was in no way disturbed by the presence of 
our party, indeed he seemed to be unaware 
of our presence. A good lady turned away 
with a look of abhorrence and remarked: 

"Poor heathen, how ignorant. Can't he 
see them idols is dumb?" 

I wonder how the recording angel cast up 
the account. Perhaps the good-hearted soul 
is even now discoursing to some missionary 
circle how she saw the heathen bowing down 
to idols of wood and stone, but her explana- 
tion may not include the fact that these 
heathen ladies and gentlemen no more wor- 
ship the idol than Christians worship idols 
when they pray before the cross, or crucifix, 
or the altar. In both cases it is merely a 
symbol to assist in concentrating the mind 
on the deity. The image is not a God, or the 
image of a God, but merely the image or stat- 
ue of a man, Gautama Buddha, who founded 
Buddhism in India six hundred years before 
Christ, and whose followers number nearly 
one-third of the world's population. 

There is a striking resemblance between 
Buddhist and Catholic religious services. 
Each has the incense, bells, candles, images 
and processions, and each has a priesthood 



40 Oriental Rambles, 

wearing distinctive robes and leading lives of 
celibacy and charity. They have monaster- 
ies and schools and attain a state of eternal 
rest and blessedness, not by the vicarious 
sacrifice of a Redeemer, or the intervention 
of saints, but by enlightenment, self denial 
and pure living. 

It is curious what different ideas devotees 
of different religions have of heaven. To 
the Buddhist it is Nirvana, the calm of per- 
fect rest; to the ancient Norsemen it was a 
land of perpetual summer; to the Moham- 
medan it is a palace of sensual delights; 
while to the Hebrew, it is a city 'with golden 
streets, pearly gates, jasper seas, and the 
pomps and ceremonies of a King of Jerusa- 
lem. In these luxurious days of the twentieth 
century any ordinary millionaire can come 
very near buying any of these delightful con- 
ditions except the Buddhist's. 

The great Tycoon lyeyasu is buried at 
Nikko. A temple of lacquer and gold does 
him honor. Innumerable bronze lanterns, 
offerings of his loving admirers, stand in 
rows and avenues. A white pony with blue 
eyes is kept saddled and bridled in a build- 
ing near by ready for the hero in case he 
should decide to return to earth. 




A Temple Gate at Nikko. 



The Monkeys of Nikko, 41 

This stable for the sacred horse is also a 
marvel of carving and lacquer. On it are the 
famous monkeys of Nikko, which are more 
celebrated than the bronze lanterns, or the 
elephant whose hind legs bend the wrong 
way because the artist was left handed. 

This carving represents three monkeys in 
a tree. One holds his hands over his ears 
and an inscription reads "Hear no evil," an- 
other covers his eyes with his hands and the 
inscription reads "See no evil," while the 
third covers his mouth with his hands and 
the inscription reads "Speak no evil." They 
illustrate the Japanese saying, "Hear not too 
much, see not too much, speak not too much." 

To enter a temple one must remove the 
shoes. One must also remove the shoes to 
enter the house of the humblest native. 
Shoes and sandals are for the dirt, and 
dirt is not for the house. To a Japanese his 
floor is also his chair and his table. But there 
are special reasons for removing shoes in 
these temples. The floors are covered with 
priceless lacquers polished like the finest 
piano. Pillars are covered with inches of 
lacquer, at fabulous expense, and then carved, 
showing the colors of the successive layers of 
lacquer. 



42 Oriental Rambles, 

The wonders of the temple, its art objects 
and its relics were shown us. We were a 
band of foreigners, ignorant in things Jap- 
anese, not of their religion, and some of us 
not over respectful, but the priest was polite, 
considerate and even indulgent. The one 
who can venerate the sacred objects of an- 
other is a great man. How much these 
priests have to bear from some disrespectful 
foreigners may be judged by the following 
extracts from the book of a well known Eng- 
lish author: 

"You buy your ticket, a little piece of 
coarse paper, with its contents for a wonder 
in Japanese only, and sealed and counter- 
sealed with funny little red ink seals to pre- 
vent the attendants embezzling the money, 
and you enter with a guide who only talks 
Japanese and smiles like a seraph, while the 
Philistine pokes fun at him in English. This 
I noticed and felt, like the Pharisee, on the 
verge of uttering thanks that I was not like 
these Publicans. It really was solemn to 
me." 

You will be glad he was solemn when you 
learn how he got in, which he relates on the 
preceding page of his book in the following 
shocking confession, which will be better un» 



The Sacred Bridge. 43 

derstood if I explain that to enter the sacred 
groves and temple grounds one must pass a 
small river or torrent. For this purpose, on 
the main road, a bridge is provided. It is 
broad, and solid, and safe and good enough 
for even an author. Near this is the sacred 
bridge used only by the Mikado in ceremo- 
nials. This sacred bridge is out of the way, 
inconvenient to reach, gated and locked at 
both ends, and respected by all natives. 
Now read the advice of this celebrated Eng- 
lish author: 

"At the bridge, dismount and send your 
rikisha and baggage to the hotel to wait 
for you, then break the law."^ Traffic does 
not cross Mihashi, the exquisite red lacquer 
sacred bridge springing from shore to shore 
with a single span like the arc of a rainbow, 
supported at each end by a gigantic double torii 
of grey granite. But over this airy structure 
the bodies of lyeyasu and his descendants, 
living and dead, had been borne for more 
than two centuries before their dynasty 
fell. Therefore, break the law,"^ and climb- 
ing over the feeble gates, enter the holy 
ground of Nikko by the sacred bridge." 



*Italics mine. — G. W. C. 



44 Oriental Rambles. 

Fortunately for the traveling public such 
law breakers are rare. When General Grant 
visited Japan he was accompanied to Nikko 
by a delegation from the Imperial house- 
hold. As a mark of great honor he was 
presented with an Edict of the Mikado 
throwing open the sacred bridge to him. 
After reading the translation he puffed vio- 
lently at his cigar and declared, "I will be 
the last person to break a law of Japan," and 
crossed the public bridge. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

GIANT IDOLS^ MIYANOSHITA AND A TRIP TO 

HELL. 

From Yokohama there are many side trips 
for a day about which chapters might well 
be written. 

Kamakura was an ancient capital and a 
stronghold, but now the plains where a mil- 
lion people lived are only rice fields and vege- 
table gardens. Civil wars, earthquakes and 
tidal waves have done their work, and only 
the Gods remain. These are perhaps the 
most eminent Gods in all Japan. Tidal 
waves have destroyed the temples that cov- 
ered the Great Buddha, but its enormous 
weight has defied time and waves for five 
hundred years. It is a bronze sitting figure 
fifty feet high. Visitors may sit upon his 
thumb for photographs. 

Nearby are parts of the ancient temple of 
Hachiman, the war hero, with the arms and 
trophies of many great soldiers guarded by 
priests. 

On a hillock protected by a shed-like tem- 
porary structure stands Kwannon, the God- 

45 



46 Oriental Rambles. 

dess of Mercy, in wood carving overlaid 
with gold. She is thirty feet high and hun- 
dreds of years old. Fires and floods have 
destroyed the temple that covered her, but 
they have been merciful to the "Lady of 
Mercy." 

There is Miyanoshita, that delightful nook 
in the mountains, where we lingered a week 
reveling in the scenery and parboiling in the 
natural hot springs. The waters from the 
hot springs are piped directly into the hotel 
to supply the cement tanks in the bathing 
compartments. 

This hotel is "Jappier" than other semi- 
foreign hotels at which we had stopped. 
Nearly all the service is performed by pretty 
little girls who cluster about like butterflies 
and seem everywhere present. Their round, 
laughing faces frequently appeared at the 
most unexpected times, — ^even when the rites 
of the bath were being performed, or during 
the ceremony of dressing, so sacred to an 
American. They meant no harm. It is the 
custom of the country. 

Across the street was a public bath for the 
common people. It was half open to the 
the street. There males and females of all 
ages plunged about in the tanks in the cos- 



In Miyanoshita, 47 

tume fashionable in the Garden of Eden be- 
fore the fall. They paid no more attention 
to each other than would children. 

My rikisha man was very much amused 
at my inquiry if there was no impropriety 
about it. The idea seemed never to have oc- 
curred to him. "Would foreigners see any- 
thing wrong in it?" he asked. It was plain 
he thought foreigners must be a very evil- 
minded lot. 

The air was chill. Overcoats were neces- 
sary for our comfort, and yet in the early 
morning Japanese men could be seen darting 
out of the bath-house, their nude bodies red 
as boiled lobsters, and carrying their kimonas 
on their arms, they would run down the 
streets to their homes as fast as their legs 
could carry them. 

At the side of the hotel was a deep ravine. 
Everywhere the hillsides are so steep that 
were it not for the dense tangle of scrub bam- 
boo their sides would wash into the valleys. 
Springs gushed from the hillsides and bab- 
bling waters could be heard day and night. 
In the ravine was a brawling brook. Its 
course could be traced from far up the moun- 
tain side. The gleaming foam, of the tor- 
rent, like a silver thread, was woven in and 



4^ Oriental Rambles, 

out among the rich colors, gold and bronze 
and crimson, of the autumnal brocade. 
Down across the ravine the steep hill- 
side looked like a mammoth picture in a 
frame of pines hung against the sky, so lav- 
ishly were the colors poured upon the ver- 
dure. 

A favorite walk was up the ravine to the 
tea house of the gold fish. There one can 
drink the weak tea of the country and learn 
Japanese from the dainty musmees who serve 
it; and feed little cakes to the gold fish in 
the fountain. This is said to have been a 
favorite resort of Sir Edwin Arnold. A 
more poetical spot can scarcely be imagined. 

In chairs slung on poles and carried by 
coolies, picnic excursions were made to 
charming waterfalls, and to Lake Hakone 
from which a good view was obtained of 
snow-capped Fiji. Crossing the lake in 
sampans, as the small boats are called, we 
were met by another set of carriers who car- 
ried us back to Miyanoshita via ^'Hell.'* 

There are two hells, called big and little. 
Little hell is a small affair of sulphur springs 
and steam, but the "Big Hell" is a terror. 
Here a volcano must come very near the sur- 
face. Over acres there is no vegetation. 



ta 










On the Lid of a Volcano. 49 

All is dreary and desolate; birds will not ap- 
proach it. The ground is a hot crust and re- 
sounds under the feet with a hollow sound 
and a disquieting vibration. Every few feet 
there is a vent through which comes hissing, 
and hot from the caldron below sulphurous 
vapors, which, cooling in the air, turn white 
and deposit cones of sulphur like miniature 
volcanoes. This sulphur is gathered up, and 
sold, and thus even "Hell" pays tribute to 
this thrifty people. 

When we had passed this inferno and re- 
sumed our chairs we were carried by these 
surefooted mountaineers rapidly along paths 
on the brink of cliffs, and across mountain 
torrents on fallen trees. It looked danger- 
ous, but having passed safely through the 
realms of Beelzebub, what else was there that 
could terrify us. 

It was with regret that we said "sayonara'V 
to the smiling and bowing "musmees" who 
lined up at the hotel door to bid us good- 
bye. The air was clear, the morning crisp, 
and our rikisha men fairly galloped with 
us down the mountain road to the station 
with the unpronounceable name, where we 
took the train for Kioto. 

The journey was broken by a day at Shid- 



50 Oriental Rambles. 

zuoka and another at Nagoya, where we saw 
ancient castles and temples. When we 
reached the comfortable hotel in Kioto we 
realized with regret that half of our journey 
in Japan was over. 



CHAPTER IX. 

KIOTO IN THE HEART OF OLD JAPAN. 

Kioto was the capital of Japan for a thou- 
sand years, and abounds in temples and 
aristocracy. We had been advised to defer 
purchases of silks and embroideries until we 
reached Kioto. Our guide said we could get 
there "also curios more antique." 

During the morning we roamed about old 
temples and gardens and castles. In the af- 
ternoon we rummaged among the curio shops 
and silk stores. Such beautiful things were 
temptations too strong to resist, and no one 
should resist, for trifles in Japan become art 
treasures in America. 

After Nikko there is not much to be said 
of temples. There are many larger but none 
so beautiful. One large and beautiful tem- 
ple has recently been completed at a cost of 
over eight million dollars, — an immense 
sum in this country where the people are 
poor. It was built entirely from gifts from 
the people. The rich gave money or ma- 
terial; the poor gave their labor. Women 
cut off their hair and sent it to be woven into 

51 



52 Oriental Rambles. 

ropes for hoisting materials. Coils of this 
rope are preserved as relics. This seems to 
contradict the statement frequently made 
that the old religions are being displaced by 
Christianity. 

A Buddhist theological seminary connect- 
ed with the temple of Nishi Hongwanji is 
actually preparing students to be sent into 
Christian countries as missionaries. In fact 
foreign missions are already established. A 
priest remarked, ''If you send men to convert 
us, why should we not pay you the same at- 
tention, as we know our religion is more 
ancient and logical than yours." 

I wonder if Americans would be as toler- 
ant of a "Joss House" set up in their neigh- 
borhood and making an energetic campaign 
for converts as these Japanese, or even the 
Chinese, arc of Christian missions. 

The temples of Shinto, the ancient religion 
of Japan, are exceedingly simple. Before 
each stands a tori, or arch, which is merely 
two upright posts connected by two beams at 
the top — the upper beam curved with the con- 
cavity upward. Tassels of rice straw deco- 
rate it. The temple itself is merely a pavil- 
ion. There is a contribution box, a bell and 
a mirror. The worshiper enters the temple. 



fca 










Buddhist and Shinto Temples, 53 

tosses a contribution into the box, strikes the 
gong to ring up the Gods, and gazes into the 
mirror. If he sees no sin in himself then he 
goes his way in peace, but if in this self- 
examination he finds error, he must cor- 
rect it. The creed is exceedingly simple, the 
spirit of which is, honor the Emperor, and 
your parents and go not contrary to your own 
conscience. 

The earlier wars of Japan on the mainland 
of Asia were not conducted on the humane 
principles of the last. A mound was pointed 
out to us in which were buried thousands of 
ears taken from slain Coreans, three hun- 
dred and fifty years ago. Since that time 
Corea has lent her ears when Japan gave ad- 
vice. Lending is better than losing. 

It was Russia's attempt to gather in Corea 
that sent Japan grappling at the throat of 
the giant bear — a bear which kills its own 
cubs. 

There is an interesting trip to Lake Biwa 
to see the giant pine tree with branches two 
hundred and eighty feet long which need to 
be supported to prevent their breaking down. 
Its trunk is about forty feet around, but it is 
only a hundred feet high. It seems to have 
run to width like an alderman. 



54 Oriental Rambles. 

A ride down the rapids of Katsuragawa is 
an exciting experience. It is a thirteen mile 
"shoot the shutes" with curves and rocks and 
other dangers in the mountain passes. The 
guide said dragons had been seen in the dark 
places. (A dragon is a sort of a lobster. 
It appears in dreams after welsh rarebit sup> 
pers.) 

Kioto is a good place to go to theatres, 
music halls, wrestling matches, dinners and 
other dissipations. We saw a tragedy and 
enjoyed it. Imagine a tragedian strutting 
about the stage with a candle on the end of a 
stick held in front of his face that the audi- 
ence may see his terrible grimaces. The 
super who holds the candle is invisible. You 
know he is invisible because he wears a sign 
that says so. 

The Japanese have no idea of stage light- 
ing. They have no footlights, side, top or 
spot lights, but hang candles, lanterns and 
electric arc lights in a jumble in front of the 
stage, an arrangement which both lights the 
stage and blinds the audience. However, 
for bona fide melodrama, with villains in all 
their fifty-seven varieties, helpless females, 
and dashing heroes, the Japanese brand is 
hard to beat. 



Theatres and Music Halls. 55 

At the music hall may be seen some very 
picturesque dancing. Some of the classical 
descriptive dances are pleasing and artistic, 
but the music, — the squeaky, screechy mu- 
sic, — how can it be described? Phil, the 
Philosopher, says he now comprehends why 
the Buddhist longs for Nirvana, the calm of 
perfect rest. 

In this music hall there was a ladies' or- 
chestra. Their seimsens twanged like brok- 
en banjos, their tom-toms thumped, and the 
shrieks of their bamboo flutes tore dreadful 
holes in the atmosphere, while a bevy of 
pretty musmees sang, or rather squeaked like 
mice. 

The dancing is of the kind peculiar to the 
far eastern countries. It consists of a series 
of graceful poses, turning of the hands and 
arms, coquetting with a fan, an occasional 
rotation of the body, and lifting of a knee, 
with the foot turned in and the great toe 
erect as though the dancer had stepped on a 
tack. The last position indicates mirth and 
jollity. 



CHAPTER X. 

OSAKA, JAPANESE-ENGLISH, AND THE KOBE 
ROOSTERS. 

Osaka is a sort of Asiatic Venice, grid- 
ironed as it is with canals, but instead of the 
tumble down palaces of a worn out nobility 
there are the factories and storehouses of 
commercial Japan. 

The Japanese have two classes of art 
goods ; one for the Japanese, and on that they 
spend an incredible amount of patient and 
wonderfully skillful labor. For this the 
Japanese themselves pay good prices. The 
other class of goods is for "export only." 
No Japanese would tolerate it. This is 
practically the only class of Japanese goods 
we see in the stores in America. These 
goods are coarse and garish with gilt and 
colors. 

In the loft we found a factory, or studio, 
for modern Satsuma ware. Here artists, 
working with magnifying glasses, were paint- 
ing miniature scenes and figures with won- 
derful detail; for instance one artist was 
painting an entire religious procession with 

56 



Street Signs. 57 

hundreds of figures and portraits on a tiny 
vase, no larger than a tea cup. This would 
require weeks of time, and the price would 
make it unsalable in Europe or America, ex- 
cept perhaps to an art collector. 

There is an ancient fortress in Osaka im- 
pregnable in the olden times of bows, arrows 
and swords, but taken easily enough now-a- 
days even by a tourist with a camera. It 
has immense walls, some stones of which are 
forty feet long by twelve feet high and ten 
feet thick. Others at the corners of the gates 
are twenty feet high, veritable cliffs in them- 
selves. Yet they were brought from distant 
island quarries before the time of machin- 
ery. 

The street signs in Japanese-English were 
a constant source of amusement. The Jap- 
anese is a good imitator, but never gets it 
exact. That is very well with merchandise, 
but with the English language it is ludicrous. 
The Jap who has learned a little English as- 
sumes that he knows the language and pro- 
ceeds to mutilate it without mercy. Here is 
a shop sign in Osaka : 



O. KOMAI, 
Monoplist of Milk. 



58 Oriental Rambles. 

Another was more true and appropriate 
than the proprietor probably surmised: 



HERE ONE DOES EUROPEANS, 
Curios, things encien. 



This style of left handed English is not 
limited to the small shops. I have a recept- 
ed bill from one of the largest silk and curio 
stores in Kioto as follows: 



** 2 hangings I got from artist Kobun 
and he execute by orders from Prince 
Nabeshima." 



The above referred to two painted silk 
curtains and not to a legal execution as might 
be inferred. 

My camera films and prints came back 
from a leading photographer, where they 
had been sent to be developed and printed. 
They were enclosed in an envelope, beauti- 
fully embossed in Japanese characters, and 
the English script "potograph." 

At a rikisha stand the tariff of charges is 
explained on a bulletin in the following lucid 
English : 



Picturesque English. 59 



**The rikisha charge is by two man for to 
go up one yen also likewise for to come down. 
By night and if storm more is double." 



At Kobe we went to see the peculiar Jap- 
anese roosters which grow tail feathers fif- 
teen feet long. These birds conducted them- 
selves with great dignity, trailing their tails 
and bestowing as much care in their manage- 
ment as European ladies do with their trains. 
Perhaps this is the original phoenix bird, 
which, with the dragon, figures so largely in 
Japanese and Chinese art. 



CHAPTER XL 

THROUGH THE INLAND SEA TO NAGASAKI. 
SAYONARA TO OLD JAPAN. 

At Kobe we took steamer and sailed 
through the Inland Sea to Nagasaki. This 
is a most delightful voyage suggestive at 
times of the Thousand Islands in the St. 
Lawrence, Lake George or Lake Champlain, 
and again broadening out until one might 
fancy he was sailing the waters of Puget 
Sound until an approach to the land in a nar- 
row passage brought to view the torii and 
temples that are unmistakably Japanese. 
But the shipping does not let one forget it is 
Japan. The high-sterned junks with their 
square sails bring to mind the childhood sto- 
ries of the "blood-thirsty pirates that scour 
the southern seas." 

As we neared Nagasaki we passed pictur- 
esque islands and rugged headlands. One 
sheer cliff projecting into the sea is called 
Pappenburg Rock. Over it were hurled 
thousands of native Christians, converts of 
the Portuguese and Spanish Jesuits, four hun- 
dred years ago. At that time Japan had 

60 



Early Christianity in Japan. 6i 

more than a million Catholics and Catholi- 
cism was growing rapidly, but they meddled 
in politics and the Shoguns suspected that 
it was the intent of the foreigners to reduce 
Japan to a dependency of the King of Spain, 
as had been done with the Philippines and 
other countries. Then they were completely 
wiped out, and the country closed to foreign 
relations. It remained so until the year 
eighteen hundred and fifty-four, when Perry 
negotiated the famous epoch-making treaty 
of amity and commerce with the United 
States. 

The harbor of Nagasaki is the most pictur- 
esque in all Japan, its encircling hill being ter- 
raced and set with temples. 

As soon as our ship had anchored, we were 
surrounded by a flotilla of coal barges on 
which were hundreds of chattering women in 
blue cotton kimonas. The barges were 
quickly lashed to the side, ladders placed, 
and the little women passed baskets of coal 
so rapidly from hand to hand that it fell in 
a steady cataract into the bunkers. 

We hastened on shore where we took riki- 
shas to see as many of the sights as the few 
hours stop-over of the steamer would allow. 

At first we went to the temple of the 



62 Oriental Rambles. 

Sacred Horse. Sacred horses are common 
enough but bronze ones are rare, so we 
climbed the hundreds of stone steps under 
many torii of stone and bronze to the Shinto 
Temple at the top of the hill. 

The famed bronze horse is not much of a 
success. Japanese horses are the worst in 
the world, but this is an unflattering likeness. 
It seems to have a little hippopotamus blood 
in it. In an adjoining court there is a real 
live sacred horse. It is an albino, with weak, 
watery eyes, mangy coat and a generally dis- 
reputable and unsanctiiied appearance. 

Nearby is a tree planted by General Grant 
and the house built for his entertainment. 
Japan spared no expense in the honor of the 
Great American. His remark at the sacred 
bridge at Nikko was only one of the ways 
by which he endeared himself to the Japan- 
ese people. 

After luncheon we visited the "Tea House 
of the Garden of Flowers," made famous by 
Pierre Loti in his book ''Madame Chrysan- 
themum." From this tea house there was a 
charming panorama of forest-clad hills al- 
most surrounding the harbor, where floated 
the ships of many nations. The city was 
spread out like a raap below. Beyond the 



Farewell to Japan. 63 

harbor entrance were islands studding the 
bay, and stretching away to the western hori- 
zon were the blue waters of the China Sea. 

As we sailed out of the harbor, bound for 
Shanghai, the sunset was draping the hills 
with golden brown in the sunlit ridges, and 
misty purple in the shadowy ravines. 

Into the west we sailed, into a sea of gold, 
and silver, and turquois. The sweet re- 
verberations of the bell of a distant hillside 
temple came to us over the waters, lingering 
in the air, and causing a pang of sadness, a 
sigh of regret that we were at last parting, 
perhaps forever, with dear old Japan. 

There are many things, dear old Japan, of 
which we may have complained unjustly or 
treated too lightly, but your people are a 
kind, courteous and pleasant people. Your 
most cruel sports are top-spinning and kite- 
flying. Your vocabularly is complete with- 
out profanity. You torture trees into dwarf 
and grotesque shapes, but you make no dis- 
tortion of the human body. You see no 
evil in nature's laws. Your list of mortal 
sins is not so long that you are forever sad 
with the contemplation of them. You go 
through life laughing and bowing. You 
see beauty in the flight of the stork, a sermon 



64 Oriental Rambles. 

in the pine tree and a poem in every 
blossom. 

Sayonara rikishas; Sayonara, tea houses, 
with the saffron colored tea; Sayonara, 
geishas, and musmees. May we meet again 
when the wistaria's radiant clusters beckon 
from the trellis, and the cherry blossoms 
come. 



CHAPTER XII. 

SHANGHAI, OLD AND NEW. 

On the morning of the second day we 
awoke to find the ship anchored in the mud- 
dy waters of the Yang-tse River at Woo 
Sung. Low lying mud banks were visible 
far away on each side. 

Native boats clustered around from one 
of which an ancient Chinaman in a wadded 
jacket climbed over the side. He sat down 
on the deck unceremoniously, and proceeded 
to take from his mouth and ears a surprising 
quantity of paraphernalia with which he per- 
formed many mystifying tricks of slight of 
hand. The things he could do with a whip 
and top seemed to upset all laws of gravita- 
tion. After this he set himself on fire inside. 
Flames and smoke poured from his mouth. 
He belched fire like a volcano. Then he 
drew forth great quantities of curled papers, 
and finally a huge bunch of firecrackers just 
in time to have them explode on the outside. 
What would have happened if they had ex- 
ploded on the inside is fearful to contem- 
plate. Before he had passed his cap all the 

65 



66 Oriental Rambles. 

way round a ship officer came along and 
John did a quick disappearing act over the 
side. 

Descending the ship ladder we boarded a 
river tug that took us up the river eighteen 
miles to Shanghai. On the way we passed 
many Chinese junks, high in bow and stern^ 
low amidship, their red or brown square sails 
crossbarred with bamboo poles. A huge 
eye is always painted on each side of Chinese 
boats, for, as they say: "Junk no have eye, 
no can see, no can see, no can sabe, no can 
sabe, no can go." 

As we neared Shanghai, smoke stacks, 
factories and ship-yards could be seen giving 
evidence of the modernization of China. 
When we reached the landing stage and took 
carriages and drove along the bund to "The 
Astor House" we realized we were in an im- 
portant commercial metropolis of the Euro- 
pean kind. On the left were substantial 
stone business blocks four or five stories 
high, while on the right was a pretty park 
sloping to the river which was swarming 
with steamers, junks and small boats. 

The street was thron.o^ed. In and out 
among the carriages of the Europeans 
passed a multitude of Asiatics. Repulsive, 



The National Vehicle. 67 

ragged and indescribably dirty, most of them 
were. Coolies trotted along drawing the 
adopted Japanese rikisha; others were 
carrying immense weights balanced on poles; 
while others trundled the national convey- 
ance, the wheelbarrow. 

This barrow has a large wheel with a 
bench on each side for passengers or freight. 
The most surprising burdens are carried on 
this vehicle. It is not unusual to see a per- 
spiring, mud-bespattered coolie staggering 
along with four fat and sleek Chinamen on 
his vehicle. Sometimes the whole family 
will be along. ''Mommer" on one side in a 
purple silk coat, her small feet in pale blue 
satin slippers peeping out from dark blue bi- 
furcated skirts, and her black hair correctly 
glued into puffs and wings; while with her 
arms which are adorned with jade bracelets, 
she holds her moon-faced offspring from fall- 
ing into the mud. On the opposite side will be 
"Popper" and the rest of the family, with 
the marketing of vegetables, pigs and fowls, 
dead or alive. 

The natives of northern China are large, 
well built and muscular. The Chinamen in 
America are the small men of southern China, 
and nearly all from the one city of Canton, 



68 Oriental Rambles. 

European Shanghai has been built within 
the last sixty years on land granted as a con- 
cession to foreign nations for commercial 
purposes outside the Chinese city. The Eng- 
lish and French have their own sections, 
their own police, and courts. 

The English "bobby" looks as though he 
had just stepped out of the Strand. The 
Chinese officer's uniform is a compromise. 
The middle part is in European style, but 
he wears Chinese boots and a funnel-shaped 
tin hat with a tassel. The Indian police arc 
the most picturesque. They are tall and 
slender, and at the top they have eighteen 
inches or more of turkey red turban, won- 
derfully and fearfully made. They also have 
good durable complexions, dreamy brown 
eyes and fierce black whiskers carefully part- 
ed in the middle. 

After several efforts we secured a guide 
who knew at one and at the same time some- 
thing of English and something of the town. 
We then invaded the old walled city of the 
Chinese quarter. As soon as we penetrated 
the tunnel-like gateway we realized we were 
in the real China. On each side lay beggars, 
derelicts of humanity, in every stage of de- 
formity and distress. As we traversed the 



Street Scenes. 69 

streets, many of which are only four feet 
wide, in which the sun cannot penetrate, we 
remembered the Japanese remark, "The 
Chinese are the dirtiest people in the world 
except the Russians." 

We passed the open booths of the jade 
cutters, and comb makers. Then the guide 
plunged through a dark passage, and we fol- 
lowed single file, Chinese fashion, through 
crooked corridors and alleys misty with the 
weight of the forty-seven original stinks, 
and emerged into an open court. 

Here were arranged in rows earthen cal- 
drons containing water in various stages of 
green stagnation in which were swimming 
Chinese gold fish in assorted sizes, and vari- 
ous styles. Each fish had several tails of 
flowing pink chiffon with ruffles around the 
borders caught up at the sides with red fins. 
When they swam across the tank their gauzy 
tails trailed out behind in a way that was 
"just too lovely for anything," as the dress- 
makers would say. 

Guide said, "Suppose Mellican man likee 
put clean water? Then kille fish; China fish 
no likee clean water." 

"Must be the same with the men," the 
Philosopher remarked. "Cleanliness might 



70 Oriental Rambles. 

kill them, but if dirt gives health they'll never 
die." 

We passed on traversing a street bordered 
on one side by shops and restaurants, and on 
the other by what might at one time have 
been a small canal, but which was nearly 
filled with slimy filth on the surface of which 
meandered a tiny stream that was liquid 
enough to flow. Every stone in the street 
was slippery and sodden with ooze, and the 
stench, the awful stench! Oh, that a kind 
providence, in pity and charity, had granted 
us a cold in China. The memory of it lin- 
gers, but not by request. 

The "Odors of Cathay" at their best are 
sandal wood, burning punk, and opium; but 
alas, there are other odors peculiarly Chi- 
nese before which the strongest English 
language is as helpless as the prattle of an in- 
fant. They combine into a terrifying ag- 
gregation of stinks, to which Perfume de 
Polecat would be as Attar of Roses. 

At last we reached the celebrated Man- 
darin Gardens, and passing through an 
elaborate stucco archway, found ourselves 
standing by a lily pond with banks of grass 
and flowers. It was a relief. We filled our 
lungs with the fresh air and looked about. 



The Odors of Cathay. 71 

The Garden is enclosed by a wall support- 
ing the elongated and undulated body of a 
dragon. Its terra cotta head is reared in 
terrifying ferocity at one side of the gate- 
way, while its body encircles the garden, and 
its tail is warningly uplifted at the other side 
of the gate. Its body is formed of half cir- 
cles of terra cotta roof tiles laid with the 
convexity upward, each tier resting its edges 
on the tops of the curves of the tiles beneath; 
an arrangement which gives the effect of 
scales to this uncanny creature. 

In the few acres enclosed by this wall are 
all the types of rustic scenery. There are 
ranges of mountains fifty feet high with pa- 
godas on their summits where one can drink 
tea. There are cool caves, and shady nooks, 
and tiny brooks with crescent bridges. 

There is a little lake bordered by willow 
trees, and in its center is a many-gabled, two 
storied pagoda supported on posts. A zigzag 
walk, also supported by posts, leads to it, 
and on it stood Chinese women looking at 
the lilies. The picture seemed strangely 
familiar. Where had I seen it before? Ah, 
yes I the plates, the old blue willow-pattern 
ware ! The picture might have stepped off 
my Grandmother's platter. 



72 Oriental Rambles. 

In the afternoon we drove out the Bub- 
bling Well Road, and through the Euro- 
pean concession, and found it clean and un- 
asiatic. In a Chinese garden we had tea 
and confections, and saw a native theatrical 
performance. This consisted of a deafening 
clash of cymbals, a rattle of wooden clap- 
pers, and an unearthly shrieking of Chinese 
fiddles, and a tiresome, lazy dance by children 
in spangled garments, and old men's masks. 

We observed that at each place where a 
fee was required there was a terrific war of 
words between our guide, and the doorkeep- 
er. We learned it was about the amount of 
extra "squeeze" which the doorkeeper was 
to collect from us, and the commission which 
he should pay our guide. China is the land 
of "squeeze," and such transactions are only 
the regular routine of business. After a 
particularly violent wordy battle with a gate 
keeper, which resulted in the guide reluctant- 
ly parting with one of the two Mexican dol- 
lars, which he had extorted from us, he 
angrily declared, "Chinaman heap big fool; 
him catchee one dollar, — wanchee two; him 
catchee two dollar, — wanchee four." 



CHAPTER XIII. 

HONG KONG. 

We sailed down the China Sea in a calm. 
The China Sea is not always calm. There 
had been a shipwreck not long before, and 
when we passed the region where it occurred 
the Chinese, of whom there were hundreds 
in the steerage, held some sort of a religious 
ceremony. They burned reams of red paper 
on which prayers were written, and threw 
them burning overboard to be scattered by 
the wind. Various foods were thrown into 
the sea. By this means they appeased the 
dragons of the air, and honored the spirits 
of their countrymen who had perished in 
the shipwreck. 

On the third morning we steamed up the 
channel with the rugged island of Hong 
Kong on the left and the rocky Chinese 
mainland on the right, and anchored in the 
harbor of Hong Kong. About us were war 
ships and merchantmen of many nations, 
for this, the best harbor of Asia is foremost 
in the amount of shipping, and one of the 
busiest ports in the world. 



73 



74 Oriental Rambles. 

The city is hung on a steep hillside which 
gets steeper and steeper until it reaches the 
rocky "Peak" eighteen hundred feet high. 
Up this incline runs a cable road to the ob- 
servatory and signal station at the top. In 
Hong Kong the social status corresponds 
with the altitude. "High Society" occupies 
the pretentious bungalows surrounded by 
spacious grounds on the upper roads and ter- 
races, while "Low Society" crowds the slums 
at the water front. As people become 
richer they move higher. 

The buildings are of stone with arcades 
on each floor to temper the heat which even 
in winter is extreme, at least in the sun. 

Rikisha rides on the fine macadamized 
drives which belt the hill on three different 
levels are very interesting. One of these 
roads is constructed over the main canal of 
the water work system. Bordering the roads 
are charming villas perched on dizzy emi- 
nences, or embowered among tropical shrubs 
and flowering plants. 

A ride up the cable inclined road is, to say 
the least, elevating. As the car ascends a pano- 
rama of city, harbor and shipping is spread be- 
fore, or rather behind, like a scroll unrolled. 
It is like going up in a captive balloon. 



ta 






n 
S" 




I 



Hong Kong. 75 

It Is only about seventy years since the is- 
land became a British colony. During that 
time the English have done much for Hong 
Kong, but Hong Kong has done much more 
for the English, forming as it does the key- 
stone of their arch of trade and Influence in 
the far East. There Is a rapidly increasing 
trade with the Philippines, and now that the 
Americans have dropped an oar into the 
Eastern Sea the Yankees of Manila feel 
quite neighborly with the Britishers of Hong 
Kong. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

CANTON AND THE CANTONESE. 

taking the evening boat from Hong 
Kong one may reach Canton early the next 
morning. The voyage up the bay in the 
balmy air and sunset glow of Southern China 
is a voyage long to be remembered. When, 
at length, the lights have faded in the west, 
and the timid stars peep out from the purple 
of the heavenly vault, and the darkening 
shadows of evening permit only the horizon 
line to mark itself against the sky, there 
arises another light, more mysterious, more 
weird, and more fascinating. Flecks of pale 
blue light cap the breaking crests of the 
steamer's wash and glimmer in the wake. 
The ruffling waves that break from the prow 
flash into fire, and outline the dark hull of 
the ship in a glowing frame. This is the 
phosphorescent sea. 

The next morning at day-break we were 
awakened by a chattering like a thousand 
magpies. The boat was moored to the 
dock at Canton and myriads of Chinese were 
in view. The dock swarmed with them. 

76 



The Phosphorescent Sea. 77 

The river was crowded with their boats. 
We went ashore, mounted sedan chairs, and 
were carried by coolies to the hotel on Sha- 
meen Island, the foreign concession on which 
are located the European consulates, resi- 
dences and hotels. This island is connected 
with the native city by a bridge protected 
with massive fortified gates and guarded by 
soldiers. 

After breakfast we began our two days' 
sight seeing. Coolie chairs afford the only 
means of rapid transit in Canton. Journeys 
about the city are not long, for the popula- 
tion of nearly two millions is crowded into 
an area of only two miles by four. The 
streets are perhaps ten feet wide. The 
buildings are two to five stories high. The 
narrow chink of sky that otherwise would be 
visible is obscured by innumerable awnings, 
and black signs painted with red or gold 
characters hanging across the street; and by 
all manner of laundries and sundries hang- 
ing from the windows. Chairs must be car- 
ried single file, and turning can only be done 
at the street crossings. The streets are clean- 
er and odors less athletic than in Shanghai, 
although if I had seen Canton first I would 
not have believed a dirtier place could exist. 



7^ Oriental Rambles. 

The shops are open to the street and all 
kinds of queer foods are exposed for sale. 
All manner of strange fish, birds, beasts and 
reptiles seem to be represented, trussed on 
sticks, dried, smoked and apparently var- 
nished. I saw several small animals in that 
condition, and from their very long tails by 
which they were hung up, I concluded they 
were not rabbits. 

It is a short ride to the Examination Hall. 
China is the originator of the State examin- 
ation system. Practically all Chinese are 
eligible to enter these examinations. Philoso- 
phy and literature are the principal subjects. 
On passing the lower grades one becomes 
eligible for minor political positions. If he 
desires higher appointment he may enter 
higher examinations, and if he passes the 
highest examination he becomes eligible for 
appointment as Mandarin of the first class 
or even for Viceroy. These examinations 
are said to be impartially conducted by gov- 
ernment officials. 

One would not suspect the destiny of the 
most populous empire in the world could be 
influenced by such an unprepossessing insti- 
tution. After passing an entrance gate we 
crossed a barren court populated by pigs, 



H 






s 

C5 




I 



Chinese Fortune Tellers. 79 

dogs and children equally dirty. We passed 
up a stone walk covered with a roof of trans- 
lucent sea shells to a central temple stacked 
with boards used in making seats and tables 
required In the examinations. From this 
temple, walks lead to the twelve thousand 
individual cells in which the students are 
locked for the two days and nights allotted 
for the completion of their essays or poems; 
for the examinations are on literature and 
not on the sciences. These cells are only 
about five and one-half by four feet — rather 
cramped quarters in which to spend forty- 
eight continuous hours, for an American, but 
a whole recreation park for the over-crowded 
Cantonese. 

One of the curious temples we visited is 
known by the cheerful name of the "Temple 
of Horrors" because in side-chapels are de- 
picted the different varieties of punishment 
to be expected in the Chinese Hell. It was 
m.uch like the chamber of horrors in the 
*'Eden Musee" in New York or "The Wax 
Works" in London. The figures are In wax, 
life size, and vividly painted. They are 
supposed to frighten the people into being 
very, very good. Among the tortures repre- 
sented are unhappy Chinamen being boiled 



8o Oriental Rambles. 

in oil, sawed between boards and crushed 
under a bell. The one who was being skinned 
alive was perhaps guilty of grafting. This 
is a popular temple on account of its many 
devils. The Chinese pantheon is composed 
of numerous devils, and they are all bad. 
If there are any good devils, they are shame- 
fully neglected, for the Chinese cannot un- 
derstand why good Joss sticks and fire-crack- 
ers should be wasted on a God who would not 
harm them. 

The court-yard is well occupied by for- 
tune tellers, who will tell you "welly good 
luck fortune welly, welly cheap," but for a 
little more they will tell you something im- 
portant that you "really should know." 
The way they jerk aside the curtain of the 
future is by burning strips of gilt, or silvered 
paper, and observing how the ashes fall. 
Of course "money must cross the palm" be- 
fore the charms will work. I believe this 
is true of the cult in all countries. 

As we proceeded through the narrow 
streets our carriers gave warning of our ap- 
proach by peculiar cries. Foot travelers and 
coolies carrying burdens flattened themselves 
against the walls to make room for the 
"foreign devils." But there came a time 



A Mandarines Pompous Procession. 8i 

when the clash of gongs approaching caused 
our guide to reverse the order. Our little 
caravan halted and the carriers crowded our 
chairs against the wall. A great Mandarin 
was approaching and he must have the right 
of way. We straightened ourselves In our 
chairs, and full of expectancy, awaited the 
great man. The clash of brass drew nearer 
and there appeared between the rows of 
celestials that lined the walls a most ridicu- 
lous retinue. 

When a Mandarin travels It must be with 
great pomp, surrounded by his servants and 
armed retainers, but such a large retinue 
costs money even In China; so Instead of 
keeping the men he keeps their uniforms and 
when he wishes to travel across the city 
sends his servants into the streets to impress 
Into his service any vagabonds on whom 
violent hands may be laid. This "round up" 
was a sorry looking lot. There were perhaps 
fifteen in the straggling procession and three 
or four uniforms did duty in sections for 
the entire army. 

First came a man, resplendent in a red 
cotton jacket, carrying a red banner with 
black characters announcing the name and 
degrees of the approaching dignitary. Then 



82 Oriental Rambles. 

came a coolie In a pagoda hat tied on with 
his queue. He was Industriously clashing 
large brass cymbals. Behind him came an- 
other belaboring a tom-tom with all his 
might. Then came a fellow wearing the re> 
mainder of the leading man's uniform. He 
carried aloft a mighty two-storied, red cotton 
umbrella. Then came the regular infantry 
consisting of two men carrying rusty flint- 
lock muskets. Thus preceded, came the 
chair of his highness, the Mandarin, — sol- 
emn, dignified and owlish in Immense round 
goggles, green plush jacket and cone-shaped 
hat with a big tassel bobbing from the top. 
Behind him came the cavalry consisting of 
two men on shaggy ponies, and last of all 
came the artillery In the person of a coolie 
staggering under the weight of an enormous 
flint-lock musket which must have been 
twelve feet long. It was rusty and dusty and 
the hammer was tied on with a conspicuous 
bit of Manilla rope. 

The procession having passed, we pro- 
ceeded on our way through Jade Street and 
Ivory Carving Street to the Flowery Pa- 
goda. Pagodas are the only characteristic 
monuments of Southern China. This one 
Is familiar to every school boy, for it adorns 



Chinese Prisons. 83 

the first page of the chapter on Asia in the 
geography, along with the elephant of In- 
dia, and the junks of Japan. 

No Canton guide will permit his tourist 
to escape seeing the execution grounds and 
the prisons. They possess a gruesome in- 
terest. The execution ground is about the 
size of a dozen city lots, and is usually oc- 
cupied by fresh pottery in the process of 
drying. When wanted for official purposes 
the pottery is hurried away. 

Criminals condemned to die do not know 
when will be the time of their execution. 
They are confined together in a pen and may 
be called at an time. Every Mandarin, or 
Judge, must witness the carrying out of his 
own capital sentences. Whenever he thinks 
it a good day for executions he travels to the 
grounds with his terrifying procession, and 
Hip Hop the Highbinder, or Ping Pong 
the Pirate, or some other criminal is ordered 
to be brought before him. 

From the nearby prison the culprit is car- 
ried securely trussed and safely crated in a 
wicker cage. He is made to kneel. An as- 
sistant holds his head by the queue, while the 
Lord High Executioner does the rest with 
his trusty snicker-snee« The old executioner 



84 Oriental Rambles. 

showed us the official sword used in thou- 
sands of executions. He called to the curi- 
ous street crowd that had followed us, that 
he would cut some one's head off to show the 
foreigners how it was done, whereupon the 
crowd fled in a panic. Their terror and 
precipitate exit seemed such a good joke to 
the old executioner that he chuckled in 
ghoulish glee. We consequently saw no exe- 
cution, but there were plenty of fresh heads 
on exhibition. Nearby is the cross on which 
the cruel sentence of cutting in a thousand 
pieces is executed as an extreme punishment. 
In the adjoining jail prisoners are herded 
in pens. Some are loaded with chains, some 
locked in wooden boxes so small that they 
cannot stand or straighten their legs, and 
some were undergoing the punishment of the 
cangue. This is a wooden collar of two inch 
plank about three feet square. When it is 
locked on, the wearer cannot lie down, nor 
brush from his face the flies and vermin with 
which the jail abounds, nor even feed him- 
self. If friends from outside or other pris- 
oners do not place food in his mouth he 
will starve. Very few survive the punish- 
ment of the cangue over three months. The 
prisoners seemed to bear their suffering with 



Chinese Prisons. 85 

stoical indifference and some even with grin- 
ning cheerfulness. 

We were glad to escape the gruesome 
sights and return to the European atmos- 
phere of the hotel on Shameen Island. 



CHAPTER XV. 

THE FLOWER BOATS CHINESE PUBLIC 

OPINION. 

In the evening in the company of an Eng- 
lish gentleman, long a resident of Canton, 
we visited the flower boats. The flower 
boats are a sort of Cantonese Coney Island. 
There the gilded youths and giddy old boys 
of Canton disport themselves with whatever 
is the Chinese equivalent for wine, women 
and song. In this case it appeared to be 
opium, fan tan, and chop suey. These boats 
are chained together and visitors walk from 
one to the other to see the different forms of 
Chinese gaiety, such as music halls, restau- 
rants, opium dens, gambling establishments 
and tea houses. The only dissipation we in- 
dulged in was tea and sweetmeats served by 
Chinese maidens, whose smoothly-oiled 
raven tresses were done up in a pad over the 
right ear and ornamented with wonderful 
hair pins with silk and tinsel tassels. The 
furnishings were gaudy but there was a sub- 
stantial tone added by the heavy black teak 
wood, carved furniture and walls inlaid with 



Chinese Salutation. 87 

mother-of-pearl. The musicians, or rather 
the noisicians, were ever present. The beat 
of the tom-tom, the squeak of the one- 
stringed fiddle, and the shriek of the bamboo 
fife, rent our ears and wounded our musical 
sensibilities. 

In another tea house we had an unex> 
pected pleasure. Our English friend acci- 
dentally met a Chinese diplomat of his ac- 
quaintance. He was a man of considerable 
importance whose name is so top-heavy with 
fame it would not do to mention it here. 
Our friend cautioned us not to offer to shake 
hands when we were introduced but to fol- 
low the Chinese custom of salutation. 

We were introduced in Chinese and of 
course did not understand a word our friend 
was saying about us, but the Chinaman who 
was robed in resplendent silks smiled like a 
seraph, bowed low, and with his right hand 
seized his left hand and shook it cordially. 
We did the same. Through an interpreter 
he said: 

"I am always glad to meet foreigners and 
am very sorry I cannot speak English. I 
am now too old to learn a language, but my 
sons speak English and French. I have 
three sons and they are all in Europe being 



88 Oriental Rambles, 

educated. You know China is old but there 
is a new China arising." 

At his order, there had been placed before 
us on the teak wood table bowls of tea cov- 
ered with saucers, but which according to 
the Chinese etiquette were not to be drunk 
until the termination of the interview. He 
explained the many varieties of the tea 
enumerated on the menu card, some of which 
were very rare, expensive and never export- 
ed, and then he inquired: 

''Do you enjoy our music?" 

Our English friend came to our rescue in 
this dilemma and admitted there was some 
disagreement on the subject. Of course 
there was not, for we were unanimous in 
the opinion that it is a nerve-racking discord. 

'*It is not strange you do not appreciate 
it," said the diplomat in the sing song in- 
tonation of the Chinese language. ''China 
was the first to compose and write music and 
had musical conservatories while the people 
of Europe were still chasing rabbits in the 
stone age. We have the advantage of sev- 
eral thousands of years of musical culture. 
What sounds to you a .discord is to us the 
sweetest harmony. I am told that in America 
and Europe people who are uneducated in 



The Yellow Music Peril 89 

music prefer simple tunes and primary har- 
monies to the grand music of Wagner. Mu- 
sical culture is necessary to appreciate your 
grand opera and classical music, but you 
must be educated still further before you can 
be expected to arrive at the Chinese type of 
music." 

This explanation nearly killed the Phi- 
losopher. With such a yellow-music peril 
confronting us, he advocated prohibition of 
musical conservatories, and high license on 
country singing classes. 

The diplomat smiled at us through his 
round glasses and asked: 

"Have you been well treated in China?" 

"Oh yes." In that we were also unani- 
mous. "We have been very well treated in- 
deed;" and then he put us to shame. There 
was sadness and reproach in his voice as he 
replied: 

"I am glad to hear it. Chinese gentlemen 
who travel to America do not receive the 
same courtesy. They are taken from their 
first-class accommodations and thrown into 
vile prisons at immigration stations to await 
the red tape of diplomatic intervention. 
The sons of our Mandarins, traveling for 
pleasure and education, have been treated as 



9^ Oriental Rambles, 

coolie laborers and sent to detention pens. 
We are the only people which you discrimi- 
nate against on account of their nationality, 
and yet v/hat immigrants do you admit that 
are more lay/ abiding, honest and hard work- 
ing than the Chinese? We men of China 
consider that unfair, and since we do not 
have the might to force from you the 
rights you grant to other nations we can only | 

resort to commercial warfare, the boycott. 
We bear no malice to you as Individuals, and 
shall continue to treat all foreigners with kind- 
ness, or Indifference, but we will try to get 
along without your cotton, your machinery, 
your pocket knives with six blades and a 
cork screw, your music boxes, your whiskey 
and other agents of civilization." 

The Philosopher Inquired, ''Do you ap- 
prove of our missionaries, and their work In 
China?" 

"I have a high regard for the missionaries 
personally, and for their schools and hospi- 
tals, but the Chinese would prefer to go to 
their own heaven in their own way. Sup- 
pose they should have the same experience 
when they reach the American heaven that 
they have when they reach an American 
port. You exclude us from your country on 



The Boycott. 91 

earth, why do you insist on driying us into 
your heaven? Will our company be more 
agreeable there?" And he smiled again. 

We assured the diplomat that he had 
given us food for thought, and drinking our 
tea we arose. There was more bowing and 
smiling and shaking of our own hands; then 
we returned to our boat. As we were being 
rowed back to our hotel, the Philosopher ad- 
mitted that this Chinese puzzle is still far 
from being solved. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

THE TEMPLE OF HONAN HOW THE DEVILS 

ARE IMPOSED UPON. 

On the follovv^ing day we visited among 
other places, the temple of Five and Five 
Hundred Genii where we saw an image of 
Marco Polo, in company with those of the 
live hundred wise disciples of Buddha — 
rather a distinguished honor to be given the 
early Italian navigator. 

We reached the famous temple of Honan 
in time to be present at a Buddhist religious 
service. It was strikingly like the Christian 
service. Kneeling worshippers responded 
in unison to the intonations of the priests in 
flowing yellow robes, who bowed before the 
figure of Buddha; there was burning incense, 
and solemn music. Nothing was missing, 
not even the collection. 

We made the rounds of the monastery, 
v/hlch is one of the largest in Southern 
China. We saw the immense caldron where 
rice Is cooked for thousands, and the hollow 
log on which the cook beats a tattoo to call 

92 



Bribing the Devils. 93 

the priests, who come with their bowls to re- 
ceive their rations. 

We were shown the sacred hogs, who de- 
vour the food the devout people dedicate to 
the Gods, that is, they do if the priests give 
them a chance. These hogs appeared con- 
tented, and meditative, but not forgetful of 
the trough, as is becoming their station, and 
the certain knowledge that theirs is a life 
appointment, and that when they die, they 
will be decently buried with proper cere- 
mony. 

The priest who guided us did not seem so 
near Nirvana as his porcine associates, for he 
lusted strongly, after the carnal gratification 
of tobacco, in fact he reminded us of his 
desire several times, and finally with suc- 
cess. 

As we were being carried back to the 
hotel, the evening burning of Joss sticks was 
progressing before each shop. The air was 
heavy with smoke, and vibrant with the rat- 
tle of exploding fire-crackers. In a niche by 
the entrance to each building, or shop, stands 
the family altar with Its lamp ever burning 
for the honor of the ancestors, and the pro- 
tection of the house against the ever present 
malevolent spirits of the air. These devils 



94 Oriental Rambles, 

are to be appeased by various bribes of 
money, gold, silver, and food, and fright- 
ened by Joss sticks, and fire-crackers. But, 
alas, the commercial spirit of the Chinese ex- 
tends even into their religion, for spurious 
money, gold and silver made of gilt paper 
and tinsel, is burned before the altars, and 
the food offered to the Gods they take back 
and eat. 

When we were safely taking our ease on 
the hotel veranda in the foreign concession, 
we heard the seven o'clock gun, and the beat- 
ing of the tom-toms, announcing the closing 
of the outer wall gates, and the inner gates 
that subdivide the city into wards. 

While the ways of John Chinaman seem 
strange to us we should remember that our 
ways are are equally strange to him, and per- 
haps equally abhorent. It is more difficult 
to place ourself at the viewpoint of others 
than it is to write a book about it. 

•' O, wad the powers some giftie gie us 
To see oursel's as ithers see us." 

The following letter written by a Chi- 
nese tourist traveling for pleasure in Ameri- 
ca, gives the Chinese view of our flaunted 
superior civilization. 



As We A f pear to the Chinaman. 95 

«* Waldorf Astoria Hotel, N. Y. 
Dear Chin Chin : 

America is a most barbaric country. The men do not 
shave their heads, ears, or eyelids. They eat meat half 
raw, still dripping blood, tearing it apart by means of iron 
tools. They cannot use chop sticks and can only aiford 
rice once a week. 

They have scarcely any respect for their ancestors and 
the way they treat their women is simply shocking. They 
take them out to what they call ** Balls'* with scarcely 
any clothing on the upper part of their bodies, it having 
mostly slipped down so it drags behind, and there to 
simply hellish noise, w^hich they call music, they wrestle 
their women all over the floor until they are exhausted. 
Yours indignantly. 

Chop Suey.*' 



CHAPTER XVII. 

THE EDUCATION OF CHINA. 

Confucianism is the leading religion of 
China. It is a system of philosophy, ethics 
and morals founded by Confucius about five 
hundred years before Christ and a hundred 
years after Buddhism was founded in India. 
Its five basic precepts are: fidelity to the 
reigning authority; reverence for parents; 
submission of the wife to the husband; obedi- 
ence of younger sons and daughters to the 
oldest son; and the duties of man to man, 
which last is summed up in their golden rule, 
"Do not do unto others as you would not 
have them do unto you." One of his five 
hundred disciples taught that good should 
be returned for evil, but Confucius rebuked 
him saying, "What then will you return for 
good? Recompense injury with justice, and 
return good for good." 

Whether these teachings have anything 
to do with it or not, it is a fact that the Chi- 
nese merchant is considered absolutely re- 
liable and honest in ail business transactions. 



Chinese Honesty. 97 

When a Chinese merchant says "Can do" af- 
ter a verbal agreement, the European trader 
knows it will be done even if the Chinaman 
loses money. He drives a close bargain, but 
when the "Can do" is passed, his word will 
be kept. There are no bankruptcies. Debts 
do not outlaw. A failure would be a serious 
calamity, for the entire family would be held 
liable and probably heads would fall. 

As we steamed down the Pearl River the 
next day, returning to Hong Kong, we 
passed some very pretty hill scenery. We 
observed that the forts China has construct- 
ed to control the river are no trifling affairs. 
Perhaps China will some day be able to kill 
her thousands like Japan and become recog- 
nized as civilized. 

In the meantime China is dreadfully 
heathen. But there is hope. We are edu- 
cating her. Our churches contribute mil- 
lions in money and hundreds of precious lives 
of missionaries to teach the Chinamen that 
their religion is all wrong, and their civiliza- 
tion away behind the times and not suited to 
them at all. If the Chinamen offer any ob- 
jection, or throw any stones, or break any 
windows, or chase the unwelcome teacher 
of a strange religion out of their neighbor- 



98 Oriental Rambles, 

hood, the cable gets hot with the calls for 
gunboats. The lion roars, and the eagle 
screams. Then the war ships and sol- 
diers come and take a province or two; 
force the helpless government to sign a 
treaty that the province is gladly given 
up, sold, leased, or given away; that 
they love the missionaries dearly, that 
they are very, very sorry their property or 
feelings were hurt; and, that they will cut 
off the head of somebody, and see that it 
does not occur again. 

But they are learning. They are learning 
how to build forts and train men, and bor- 
row money, and manufacture rifles and big 
guns. In due course of time they will be- 
come civilized, and have an army of a hun- 
dred million men; then, perhaps, an Asiatic 
Napoleon, another Mongol like Genghis 
Kahn who conquered Central Asia in the 
thirteenth century will rise up among them, 
who knows how to handle such an army be- 
cause he has been educated at the expense of 
the American people at West Point, and — 
then may all the world tremble. 

On the way down the river we passed a 
large house-boat flying the American flag. 
It was floating lazily at anchor near the 



Strange if True, and Strange Anyway. 99 

bank. Its decks were shaded by awnings 
and comfortable with hammocks and steamer 
chairs. It looked very cool and luxurious. 
Its occupants waved us a cheery salutation 
as we passed. The captain replied: 

"No that is not an American millionaire 
but missionaries spending a season on the 
river for the good of the natives. 

The captain was a hardened sailor. He 
appeared to believe that the foreign teachers 
destroyed the natives' reverence for the moral 
code of their ancestors without supplying 
them with a working quantity of the Chris- 
tian conscience. 

He related a story of the missionary 
house-boat, which illustrates the patience 
required to awaken China. 

The missionary's class having assembled 
the good man proceeded to throw the light 
into dark places in this manner: 

"Who made you?" he asked of the China 
boy at the end of the line. 

"Ancestors." 

"No. God made you,'^ corrected the 
missionary. "Now who made you?" 

"God." 

"Correct. Now what did he make you of?" 

"Spirits," replied heathen number two. 

1.0FC. 



100 Oriental Rambles. 

"No," corrected the missionary again. 
"He made you of dirt. Now what did He 
make you of?" 

"Dirt." 

"Correct. Now what did he command 
you not to do?" 

"Confucius, him say, no makee ancestor 
losee face; no stealee, no talkee lie," prompt- 
ly answered number three. 

"The answer is 'sin,' " sternly corrected 
the missionary. "Now what did God com- 
mand you not to commit?" 

"Sin." 

"Now what is the Trinity?" 

On this the Chinaman figured some time 
and finally declared. "One is three and 
three is one, Chinaman no can do." This re- 
quired a long explanation and in the mean- 
time convert number two disappeared. 

"Now we will review the lesson," said 
the missionary. 

"Now, number one, who made you?" 

"God." 

"What did he make you of?" 

"Sin," came the surprising admission from 
convert number three. 

"Oh my, no!" 

"Yes, me catche *sin.' Dirtee Chinaman, 



Learning English. loi 

him jump overboard, takee washee. Him 
talkee plenty good Englis, catchee job guide; 
him no more likee Meh'can Joss." 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

MACAO, THE MONTE CARLO OF THE 
EASTERN SEA. 

Macao is picturesque. As our steamer ap- 
proached there was a suggestion of a water 
color sketch in its buildings, tinted pale blue, 
salmon or gleaming white, which terraced the 
rugged peninsula in an azure sea. It was 
built by the Portuguese four hundred years 
ago, and looks its age. 

The mob of Chinese rikisha men at the 
dock were held in check by a pompous little 
Portuguese policeman. He was less than five 
feet in height and weighed perhaps a hundred 
pounds. He carried a pistol and an enor- 
mous saber. His black eyes flashed from 
under bushy eyebrows, and his exuberant 
whiskers bristled with importance. He did 
not hesitate to slap the Chinamen in the face, 
and if one showed the slightest resentment, 
he would get a resounding whack with the 
flat of the saber across his solar plexus, or 
on his ultimate if he had turned to flee. 

102 



The Fan-Tan Game, 103 

When we had at last selected riklshas 
we made fast time to the Boa Vista Hotel. 
The view from the porches was of such strik- 
ing beauty that it brought rhapsodies of de- 
light from every tourist. The hotel was on 
a hillside at one end of a crescent bay. At 
the other end was a cone shaped hill crowned 
by the Montee fortress. On the glassy sur- 
face of the bay floated junks and the bat- 
winged boats of the fishermen. Facing the 
bay is the Praya Grande, a wide esplanade, 
thronged with promenaders. It is shaded 
by banyan trees, and protected from the sea 
by a substantial granite wall. At the fur- 
ther end of the Praya Grande are the public 
gardens beautifully laid out and glowing 
with tropical flowers. A military band was 
playing there, and the sweet strains of mu- 
sic mellowed by distance, were brought us on 
the fragrant breezes. Macao might be 
called an Asiatic Naples, but, on account of 
its many gambling establishments it is known 
as the Monte Carlo of the Eastern Sea. 

In the evening we went to one of the 
brilliantly lighted gambling houses to see 
the popular game of Fan-tan. We were 
shown to a balcony from which we could 
look down upon a fan-tan table, around 



I04 Oriental Rambles. 

which was a crowd of Chinamen, Portu- 
guese, and Eurasians. High class natives 
and foreigners use this upper balcony when 
they play. A dealer for the house sits at a 
large table upon which are painted four 
squares marked 1,2,3 ^^^ 4- ^ pi^^ ^^ copper 
coins is before him. He pushes a handful 
towards the center of the table, and partial- 
ly covers it with a bowl. Then the betting 
begins. The players can place their money 
on either of these four numbers. When the 
bets are placed, the dealer lifts the bowl and 
counts the coins back into his pile in lots of 
four, using a chop stick that all may see the 
counting. There will be left over an odd i, 
2, or 3 coins, or they will come out even on 
the 4. The number left over wins, and all 
who have their money on that square are 
paid three times their bet, less ten per cent, 
commission. All others lose to the house. 
An attendant on the balcony attended to the 
players, lowering their money to the table 
and drawing it up by means of a cord and 
basket. The bets were usually silver coins, 
but sometimes large bank notes traveled 
down, and fat rolls came up, by the cord and 
basket route. It is purely a game of chance, 
and quite exciting. 



Camoens^ Gardens. 105 

The house served tea and nuts. A few 
Chinamen were smoking opium on the teak 
wood divans around the gallery, or dozing 
quietly in the opium fiend's paradise. 

On our return to the hotel, how charming 
were the cool verandas ! The street lights of 
the Praya Grande outlined the crescent of 
the bay, and from the distant public garden 
came the soft strains of a waltz. Across the 
dark waters of the bay stretched a shimmer- 
ing pathway of silver to the low hanging 
moon. 

The next day we visited the picturesque 
ruins of the old cathedral at the top of a long 
flight of steps. It is interesting from the 
fact that immense treasure is supposed to be 
buried in the neighborhood, and that many 
Japanese converts who escaped the persecu- 
tion in Japan, assisted in its building. 

Nearby is the entrance to Caraoens' Gar- 
dens where the exiled soldier-poet of Portu- 
gal completed his heroic epic ''The Lusia- 
das." Through a mediaeval gateway we 
entered a garden blooming with many flow- 
ers. The air was sweet with heliotrope, lav- 
ender, and rose. We passed an imposing 
old mansion occupied by the military Gover- 
nor, and walked down an avenue in the cool- 



io6 Oriental Rambles. 

ing shade of the spreading banyan trees, 
then up a small hill, and found ourselves in 
a little nook shaded by immense overhanging 
boulders. This is the grotto of the Camo- 
ens, the spot where the immortal bard re- 
tired to receive inspiration to write the 
greatest epic poem in Portuguese literature 
for the glory of Louis of Portugal, who had 
exiled him, because he knew too much, and 
wrote too truly. 

In an archway formed by the boulders are 
verses in various languages praising Camo- 
ens. One in English began: 

** Gem of the Orient, Earth, and open Sea, 
Macao ; that on thy lap and on thy breast 
Has gathered beauties all the loveliest 
Which the sun shines on in his majesty." 

There was more of this poem, but as it 
progressed it got worse, so I divide it in the 
middle, and deliver only the top. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

SINGAPORE. 

On the voyage down from Hong Kong 
ducks came out; also lawns, and pongees. It 
was hot, and the dark man who pulled the 
punka was overworked. The punka is an 
early ancestor of the electric fan. If he 
pulled too lazily at the rope the wrath of 
some officer was sure to fall upon him. This 
particular punka oscillated over the table in 
the dining cabin, and faintly stirred the hu- 
mid air into the semblance of a breeze. 
Sometimes he held the cord with his toes, 
and then the upper part of him slept, but his 
leg was awake and swung regularly back and 
forth pulling the cord. 

At Singapore we were within a few de- 
grees of the equator, and here we stopped 
for a day. A drive to the Botanical Gar- 
dens was full of interest. The glare of the 
chalk roads was relieved by the dense green 
of the tropical foliage. The bungalows of 
the European residents are raised on stilts 
to permit the breezes to temper the heat and 

incidentally, perhaps, to discourage the ma- 
jor 



io8 Oriental Rambles. 

laria germs, fever microbes, snakes, tigers 
and other dangers that are the principal sub» 
jects for afternoon conversations. In the 
town itself the malaria and fever germs are 
constant visitors, and boa constrictors and 
tigers occasionally call. 

At the Zoological Garden there is a charm- 
ing collection of snakes — a whole temper- 
ance lecture, — and several nice glossy tigers. 
There is also a cageful of monkeys thirsting 
for knowledge; one reached a surprisingly 
long arm through the bars and appropriated 
my glasses. He carried them to the highest 
perch, then he chuckled with delight and 
gravely looked through them. He was 
plainly surprised. His exclamations attract- 
ed a dozen other monkeys. They quarreled 
about my glasses, and then divided them, 
and when I came away one was parading the 
cage looking through a single eye-glass like 
Montmorency of the "Happy Hooligan" 
family. 

The street scenes of Singapore are especi- 
ally interesting. All the races of the East 
are represented, with the Malays predom- 
inating. These people are shady of skin, 
lathy of leg and not much given to clothes. 
Such as they have are in all the colors of the 



Not Much Given to Clothes. 109 

rainbow. These benighted heathen are still 
in darkness regarding the advantages of 
clothing in their hot climate, and they will not 
realize that it is very improper to go about 
clad only in red breech clouts and brass ank- 
lets. Occasionally some dandy among them 
will appear of a holiday carrying European 
clothes to extremes by wearing a discarded 
silk hat and patent leather shoes, but alas 
there will be no more in the middle than be- 
fore. 

Here we entered a Hindoo temple at the 
invitation of the good-natured Cerebus at 
the gate who wore a few clothes and a kind- 
ly smile. His teeth were dyed a deep crim- 
son by the betel nut he was industriously 
chewing. He showed us several fierce idols 
and two cars of Juggernaut. 



CHAPTER XX. 

PENANG TROPICAL FRUITS. 

All day we sailed up the Strait of Ma- 
lacca. Some of us slept on deck to catch. a 
glimpse of the Southern Cross. Whether 
we saw it, is a matter of faith, and ''faith is 
believing what you know ain't so," as the 
small boy said. We did, however, see the 
hills of Sumatra, and the mountains of the 
Malay Peninsula. One of the highest peaks 
is Mount Ophir, where, according to a tra- 
dition, the Queen of Sheba had gold mines. 

The sea was serene and on its glassy sur- 
face the passing clouds were reflected. Fre- 
quently we saw driftwood. Once we passed 
a native canoe upturned. The breeze was 
fresh with the odor of the ocean and soft 
with the balm of the Indian Isles where : 

**Are still the heavy blossomed bowers. 

And the heavy fruited trees; 
The summer Isles of Eden 

In their purple sphere of seas.'* 

There was a langorous charm in the air. 
To stretch In a steamer chair and give one's 

110 



s 




Tropical Luxuriance. m 

self up to the happiness of indolence, was a 
luxury which was all too soon interrupted by 
our arrival at Penang. 

Penang, where the nutmegs come from, is 
much like Singapore. The people look even 
more barbaric on account of the custom of 
painting their foreheads, arms and bodies to 
indicate their caste. It is very effective on 
their brown skins. Another race, the Chet- 
ties, shave the front of their scalps but allow 
their back hair to fall over their shoulders. 

We took garees, as the native carriages 
are called, and drove some four miles to the 
Botanical Garden. The road was through 
groves of cocoanut, date and areca palms, 
nutmeg, clove and cinnamon trees. We 
passed many spacious European bungalows 
and native palm huts. 

The Botanical Garden is a revel of tropi- 
cal luxuriance, strange flowers, wonderful 
orchids and heavy perfumes. Back of the 
garden rises a hill, billowy with the green of 
tree tops. From a notch in its crest a moun- 
tain stream tumbles hundreds of feet in a 
foaming cascade. In the sunlight it gleamed 
like a white satin ribbon on a green velvet 
curtain. We climbed to the cascade, ad- 
mired its beauties, and filled our sun helmets 



112 Oriental Rambles, 

with brilliant flowers that nodded from the 
rocky clefts. 

In the cooling sprays of the waterfall we 
tasted the fruit of the tropics. Our Malay 
boy opened the basket and presented a fruit 
that looked something like a yellow toma- 
to. It was a mango. Its watery interior 
was held together by a fibrous, cottony net- 
work, and the eating of one is like unto the 
sucking of a sweet rag. Another fruit look- 
ed like a baked potato and tasted like a pear 
gone wrong. Then came the mangostine. 
This was a highly-ornamented fruit trim- 
med with four small leaves at its stem, and 
a mark on its tip like a marigold. We cut 
through its purple skin and its rose-tinted 
husk, and a snowy white heart separated. 
This readily broke into quarters like little 
blocks of ice cream. I tasted a portion and 
gave thanks; for it melted in the mouth with 
a cool, refreshing lemon-phosphate taste 
that would delight a Sybarite, whatever a 
Sybarite may be. 

The sunset as seen from the ship when it 
steamed away from Penang that evening was 
strangely beautiful. The sun approached 
the distant hills in a glory of golden haze 
barred by burnished copper. The cloud 



Sunset on the Indian Ocean. 113 

margins faded into pale green and turquols, 
touched here and there with rose and amber. 
Into this riot of colors, streamers of pink from 
the sinking sun shot into the heavens in rays 
of radiating glory, changing constantly and 
suffusing all the circle of the horizon with 
rosy opalescence. It was one of those sun- 
sets that not even fancy can tint; a fragment, 
perhaps, of the glory that surrounds the eter- 
nal throne. 

The colors faded; the clouds darkened; 
only a dull red glow lingered on the western 
horizon. The heavenly vault deepened to 
azure; the tiny stars peeped shyly out; 
and a great, round, red moon slowly rose 
out of the glistening waters of the Indian 
Ocean. 



CHAPTER XXI. 

ARRIVAL AT COLOMBO AND A SAD DECEPTION. 

As we approached Ceylon we could see 
the hazy blue mountains with puffs of steamy 
clouds hanging on their wooded slopes; and 
forests of palms fringing the sandy beaches 
where the white line of the breakers could 
be seen. Many passengers stood at the rail 
a long time sniffing the air, for the "spicy 
breezes that blow soft o'er Ceylon's Isle," 
but all they got for their trouble were sun- 
burned noses from the reflection of the sun 
on the water. 

When we came to anchor, numerous na- 
tive boys in breech clouts paddled to the ship 
on rafts of three slender logs. Standing on 
these uncertain platforms they lifted up their 
voices in glad peans of joy, for money was 
coming their way. They sang "Ta-ra-ra- 
boom-de-aye," beating time by slapping their 
naked sides with their elbows. When pas- 
sengers had been attracted to the rail, these 
unchins cried "Throw a penny, Mister?" 
When a coin was thrown into the water every 
urchin dived. Down they went, scrambling 

114 



The Moral of a Catamaran. 115 

for the coin, and when they came up one of 
them was sure to have it between his teeth. 

Some of the impatient passengers went 
ashore on catamarans. A catamaran is a 
rakish looking craft made of a hollow log. 
It is capable of sustaining a not too obese 
passenger in the center, and a lean native at 
either end. It would immediately capsize 
were it not for the outrigger, which consists 
of a small log lashed at the ends of two poles 
and floating alongside. This humble out- 
rigger is an essential support of the boat. 
From this simple craft the Philosopher from 
Philadelphia deduced some comforting mor- 
als. 

"It is sometimes given to the weaker 
half," he said, "to be the support of the 
strong," and he added sadly, "sometimes the 
sole support." "It also teaches the value of 
little things; for Instance, if our salary is 
small we should be consoled by the thought 
that such as it is, we need it." 

The Philosopher had other inexpensive 
wisdoms of the catamaran variety, but his 
audience had climbed overboard to the steam 
tender. 

After passing through the custom house 
with that sense of burning shame that comes 



ii6 Oriental Rambles. 

from having nothing to smuggle, we stepped 
into rikishas, and were soon rolling along 
the sea-shore road to the Galle Face Hotel. 

What a pleasure it is to one who has been 
a long time on shipboard to feel himself 
again on the solid earth. With what relief 
one can fill the lungs with air that has the 
odors of growing grasses and blooming flow- 
ers. 

The roads of Colombo are made of molas- 
ses colored soil, which has a habit of mean- 
dering through the air, and settling on any 
face that happens to be convenient. This 
produces some curious maps on the perspir- 
ing faces of the tourists, but on the natives it 
doesn't show. 

As we rode, I remarked to Phil, the Phi- 
losopher from Philadelphia, the strange ab- 
sence of men. The way women are down- 
trodden in this heathen island is certainly a 
sin. Reared as I was in a land where wo- 
men are respected, and protected, it filled me 
with indignation to see women, lovely wo- 
men, engaged in every sort of occupation. 
There were frail women carrying burdens; 
slender women with soulful eyes toiling in 
the roads; fat women whose skirts were bad- 
ly stretched to get around, driving nails and 






n 




Imposed Upon. 117 

hitting the heads every time; women driving 
bullock carts, and using frightful language; 
and women doing nothing, but throng the 
streets. 

All of them wore skirts of checked calico 
tightly wrapped around their limbs, and their 
long hair was neatly done in top-knots, held 
by large tortoise shell combs. 

Were there no men on the island? Ap- 
parently not. The Philosopher had read 
of some such island in the Southern Sea. Can 
this be the land of the Amazons? The 
Philosopher thought not, as he saw no span- 
gled tights. 

A beggar girl ran by my side. "Give me 
a penny," she said, tapping her forehead 
with one hand and rubbing her bare stomach 
.with the other. "Give me a penny." Then 
she reversed the order, rubbing her forehead 
and tapping her stomach."* 

"Give me a penny. You are my father." 

"Impossible. I am a perfect stranger." 

"You are my very good father," she in- 
sisted, salaaming as she ran. "You are my 
father; give me a penny." She kissed her 
hand and touched my white shoes. 

"You are my father." 

*A very difficult feat. Try it yourself.— C'. W. C. 



ii8 Oriental Rambles. 

Here was a sad case. In all this town 
there was not a man to be her father. She 
must beg one. Anyone who had money 
would do. Not a man In sight but the Phi- 
losopher; and yet, It was curious, there were 
children, — many of them — I could recog- 
nize them anywhere. They wore no dis- 
guises. Clad In the rich brown tints of their 
complexions, and Trilby hearts, they stood 
forth In the perspective, living evidence of 
the needlessness of the masculine gender In 
the propagation of the species. I was dumb- 
founded. Here was a discovery. Beside It 
Darwin's discoveries and theories were as 
simple as nursery rhymes. It Is true Prof. 
Loeb had discovered that sea urchins can be 
produced without male fertilization, but 
what was that compared to my discovery that 
land urchins can be produced without man. 
I would report It to the Scientific world at 
once, and emblazon my name high on the 
pinnacle of fame, beside Prof. Smitherene's 
whose paper on "Insomnia of the Industrious 
Flea" won the the Tanner's medal. 

I bounded into the hotel, ordered a bale 
of paper and a quart of ink sent at once to 
my room and sprang up the stairs three steps 
at a time. 



A Custom of the Country. 119 

At last the writing material was brought — 
by apparently another woman, — but, Shades 
of Cleopatra ! this one had whiskers. 

"What," I said, a horrible suspicion chill- 
ing my blood, "do you women wear whiskers 
too?" 

He turned reproachful eyes upon me and 
sadly said: 

"Master, I am the father of a family." 

"But why these skirts; your Psyche knot; 
your tortoise shell combs?" I inquired. 

"'Tis the custom of my country," he re- 
plied calmly. "Shall I bring you tea?" 



CHAPTER XXII. 

IN AND ABOUT COLOMBO. 

My room at the Galle Face Hotel over- 
looked the ocean. Cocoanut trees waved 
their fronds in front of the open wnidows, 
and cast dark shadows in the evening when 
the moonlight rippled on the sea. 

I did not occupy my room alone. I shared 
it with hordes of mosquitoes and red ants. 
Netting around the bed kept the former at 
bay, and one gets used to the latter. 

My most frequent visitors were the crows. 
They came early and stayed late. They sat 
on the window ledge, and stared with their 
heads tipped saucily to one side, and cawed 
for the remains of Chota hadzri, or early 
breakfast of toast and tea, which is brought 
before one is out of bed according to the cus- 
tom of the country. 

One gradually gets accustomed to room 
boys in skirts, Psyche knots, and hair combs. 
With a little experience one can distinguish 
the genuine female from the near-woman va- 
riety. 

120 



Keeping an Eye Out for Whiskers. 121 

The women are highly ornamented with 

anklets, toe rings, finger rings, armlets, neck- 
laces and ear-rings in curiously worked sil- 
ver and gold, some set with native precious 
stones. Even the nose is not spared. Often 
a jeweled ornament is anchored in one side. 
Occasionally both sides of the nose are 
pierced, and hung with jeweled pendants. 
But men also wear much jewelry, consequent- 
ly that is of little assistance in determining 
sex. It is safer, and better judgment to keep 
an eye out for whiskers. Under seven years 
of age children are clothed only in jewelry, 
including a silver chain around the waist * 
from which is suspended an ornament in the 
form of a Trilby heart in the location of the 
historical fig leaf. 

The rides around Colombo are sources of 
ever-varying delight. The roads wind 
through groves of cinnamon, nutmeg, clove 
and palm trees. There is a depth of green 
that throws the purple of the passion flower 
and the scarlet of the hibiscus into brilliant 
relief. The palm leaf cottages of the na- 
tives, half hidden in flowery bowers, the 
gracefully draped women, and the naked 
cherubs playing about, are in perfect har^ 
mony with the Orient of our dreams. 



122 Oriental Rambles. 

Wherever there is a pond or a river, one 
will generally find natives at their laundry 
work. They wash their clothes oji them- 
selves and take them off to dry in the wind. 
So skillful are they in exchanging their gar- 
ments in public that at no time is too much 
bronze visible. 

The natives wash the European's clothes 
by trailing them in the stream, and trash- 
ing a rock with them. This method is guar- 
anteeed to be the most destructive known, 
but these native laundries are among the 
most picturesque scenes in Ceylon. 

One afternoon we drove to a Buddhist 
Temple, some miles out, where there is a 
large dagoba. A dagoba is a monument in 
somewhat the shape of a huge dinner bell, 
and usually contains some sacred relic or 
tomb. Far away in the tangled forest of 
the interior, are ruined cities, with dagobas 
three hundred feet high and four hundred 
feet in diameter at the base. 

As it was a festival day we found the great 
court-yard gay with banners strung from 
masts. Natives were sitting in meditation 
under the sacred Bo tree. One of these trees 
stands in nearly every temple yard. It is 
considered the most desirable tree under 



A Visit to a Temple. 123 

which to meditate, because in its shade Bud- 
dha sat when he attained perfect sanctification. 

A procession entered the grounds. At the 
head came a band of musicians with native 
instruments. Then followed young women 
draped in white, bearing on their heads urns 
containing rice and fruits as offerings for the 
support of the temple. Others bore trays of 
temple flowers, white and lily-like, with 
heavy perfume. The procession passed 
around the temple singing. 

I opened my camera and prepared to take 
a picture. The action was observed, but I 
was not expelled. On the contrary two old 
gentlemen with patriarchal beards, who 
seemed to be the marshals of the occasion, 
offered to march the procession in any posi- 
tion I wished that I might get a good photo- 
graph. The festival was interrupted. The 
people marched and countermarched. Every 
suggestion was welcomed with the laughing 
good humor found in children and heathens. 
So much attention was embarrassing. 

Finally my good patriarch friends asked if 
I would like to photograph the high priest. 
Of course I would, and would consider it a 
great honor. He said he would arrange it 
and disappeared. 



124 Oriental Rambles. 

Soon a chair was brought and placed at 
the temple entrance. The venerable priest 
came out and seated himself. The younger 
priests and temple attendants gathered 
around him. My two patriarch friends with 
the beards sat at his feet, and I took their 
photographs. The high priest did not speak 
English, but through an interpreter he wished 
us well, bowed profoundly, and withdrew 
within the temple. 

Do you think a Cingalese traveling in 
America would meet with such courtesy if he 
should visit our churches during a festival? 

With many bows and thanks we left our 
gentle heathen friends, the Buddhists. I am 
afraid I shall feel like a pious slanderer if in 
the little church at home I sing as the mis- 
sionary plate is going round: 

*♦ What tho' the spicy breezes 

Blow soft o'er Ceylon's Isle, 
Where every prospect pleases 

And ONLY MAN IS VILE." 

Just as we reached the hotel a tropical 
storm overtook us. Black clouds rolled rap- 
idly across the sky. The wind came roaring 
upon us, bending and shaking the palm trees 
like banners. The day suddenly became 
dark as twilight. Vivid lightnings slashed the 



^1 



•^ 

^ 






<3- 













A Tropical Storm. 125 

heavens, and thunder crashed a continuous 
cannonade. The rain fell In torrents. 
Presently the storm had passed. All was 
calm again and the sun shone brighter than 
before. It was like an outburst of passion 
that is followed by regret. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

KANDY, AND THE KANDY TOOTH. 

After a short railroad ride through a 
strange and interesting country, we arrived 
at Kandy, the ancient capital of the Cinga- 
lese Kings. Kandy is a charming place nest- 
ling among the hills on the border of an arti- 
ficial lake — one of the few remaining irri- 
gation works of the ancient Kings who made 
Anuradhapura, the half-buried ancient city 
far away in the jungle, one of the most mag- 
nificent capitals of the world, rivaling Baby- 
lon and Nineveh in extent and splendor. 

Near the center of the lake there is an 
island overgrown with palms and mossy 
trees. A palace was once there as beautiful 
as a poet's dream. It was the king's harem. 
Nothing now remains but a vine-covered 
arch. The king's gondola no longer touches 
the half buried marble stairs. The throb of 
the lute, the tinkle of the castanets, and the 
laughter of women, are no longer borne 
across the waters as they dance before the 
king. Now are heard only the songs of 

126 






Si. 










A Bone of Contention, 127 

birds, and the cooing of doves among the 
tangled vines. 

The ancient Temple of the Tooth stands 
by the lake. This is one of the most revered 
spots in all Buddhism. It appears that when 
Buddha died he left a tooth which in after 
years became a bone of contention. During 
the quarrels of the Buddhists and Brahmins, 
it was deemed unsafe in India, and was 
brought to Ceylon in the third century, con- 
cealed in the hair of a princess. The devout 
king caused a shrine of gold and precious 
stones to be built for it. A thousand years 
later Indian invaders took the tooth, jewels 
and all, back to India ; but it again found its 
way to Ceylon, and another shrine was built 
for It. 

Last of all came the Portuguese, who were 
described by a writer of the time as "A race 
of men surpassingly white and beautiful, 
wearing boots and hats of iron, eating a white 
stone, and drinking blood, and having guns 
which would break a castle of marble." 

The Portuguese landed and proceeded to 
rob the bodies and save the souls of the na- 
tives. They spread Christianity by fire and 
sword. They destroyed the temples; broke 
the irrigation dams ; and carried the tooth of 



128 Oriental Rambles. 

Buddha to Goa, where the Archbishop in 
the presence of the Viceroy, publicly burned 
that sacred relic of a hundred million people. 

But finally, in the course of time, the Por- 
tuguese were expelled by a just heaven, — and 
the Dutch. 

The Dutch were more tolerant, being 
more concerned in getting business than sav- 
ing souls; consequently a miracle was per- 
formed by which the late incinerated molar 
was materialized from thin air with nothing 
lost. In fact, those who have seen it say it 
is large enough for a horse. 

However it may have been secured, it was 
duly incased in gold, placed in a jeweled 
casket, in a gold cabinet, in the Holy of 
Holies of the Temple of the Tooth in Kan- 
dy, and is accorded all the veneration of the 
original. 

One morning we were aroused by the 
shrill notes of flutes, the banging of tom- 
toms and the shouts of a multitude. We 
hastily dressed and went out. A country- 
delegation was passing to the temple bear- 
ing tribute of rice from the recent harvest. 
They were dressed in the gayest colors, and 
sang as they marched, two by two, in a long 
procession. The baskets of rice, bedecked 






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Co 



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to 



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a 
S. 



Crc) 



a 




Courtesy to Travelers. 129 

with temple flowers, were carried on the 
heads. There were many curious banners, 
and a canopy was carried over the proces- 
sion. 

We followed into the temple. A polite 
young priest secured for us an elevated posi- 
tion from which we were able to see and 
photograph the procession as it marched 
several times around the Holy of Holies 
which is a shrine built in the centre of the 
temple court-yard containing the sacred 
tooth. As they marched they sang and 
shouted "praises to Buddha," as the priest 
explained. 

The young priest then showed us the treas- 
ures of the temple. He escorted us into a 
room dimly lighted with candles. Before 
an image of Buddha was a table loaded 
with temple flowers. The air was oppres- 
sive with their rich, sweet odor. He opened 
cabinets and showed us Buddhas in gold, in 
silver, and incrusted with precious stones. 
With evident pride, he opened another cab- 
inet and exhibited a figure of Buddha fifteen 
inches high cut from a single rock crystal. 
This he said was a present from the King of 
Siam. 

He took us to the library. This was an 



130 Oriental Rambles. 

upper floor of the turret-like corner of the 
temple, and was nearly surrounded by an 
arcade from which a splendid view of the 
lake and hills could be obtained. We were 
shown sacred tomes of the Buddhist scrip- 
tures written by hand on palm leaves and 
bound in golden covers incrusted with pre- 
cious stones. He also showed with much re- 
spect a leaf from the original Bo tree in In- 
dia, which is still alive, twenty-five hundred 
years after Buddha sat in its shade. This 
leaf was brought and presented by Sir Edwin 
Arnold, author of "The Light of Asia," 
whose works are on the library shelves to- 
gether with all the books in all languages 
that have reference to the religion of Bud- 
dha. 

We were then piloted through a crowd of 
natives to the entrance of the shrine in the 
yard. Up the sacred stairway the priest 
made a way, crowding to one side the natives 
who were devoutly crawling up on their 
knees. These people scarcely noticed us. 
Their lightly clasped hands, upturned eyes, 
and rapt expressions indicated intense re- 
ligious sincerity, and calm and earnest spirit- 
uality without hysteria. When we had 
reached the top we found ourselves in a small 



H 



^3 



Co 



^3 

o 
a, 

to 






i^ 



O^q 







The Devil Dancers of Ceylon. 131 

room dimly lighted by candles, and packed 
solid with natives. Beyond a railing, which 
held back the crush of people, was a golden 
pagoda-like casket, perhaps two feet high. 
In this is the sacred tooth enclosed in several 
smaller caskets. The tooth itself is shown only 
on especially sacred occasions, much as the 
sacred relics are shown in European cathe- 
drals. We did not linger long. The air was too 
redolent of perfumes, piety and perspiration. 

On regaining the court-yard we found our 
friends of the morning procession engaged 
in a religious service. The priest secured for 
us a position on the platform which surround- 
ed the court from which we could get a good 
view and photograph of the priests on one side, 
and the assembled multitude on the other. 
The priests were gathered on the platform 
near a corner of the court. An old priest, 
his strong, kind face uplifted to the heavens, 
was repeating a service with the intonations 
and mannerisms of our own clergy. The 
people kneeling in the court-yard responded 
in unison, bowing their heads and uplifting 
their clasped hands at certain sentences. The 
similarity to our Christian service was re- 
markable. 

One evening we were entertained by the 



132 Oriental Rambles. 

Devil Dancers. The devils of disease and 
misfortune are supposed to be frightened 
away by their antics. At ten o'clock a com- 
pany of nine men with attendants carrying 
torches came from the hills. There were 
six men with barrel drums, small drums and 
cymbals and three dancers. The dancers 
were loaded with silver bells and fantastic or- 
naments, which jingled as they marched up 
the street. 

When this grotesque procession reached 
the open space before the hotel porch, where 
the spectators were congregated, they began 
a weird chant in nasal falsetto to the accom- 
paniment of their strange musical instru- 
ments. Gradually their fervor increased and 
they began to strike the earth with their bare 
feet. The music became faster and faster 
and their steps more sprightly until they 
bounded about in wild acrobatic dancing, with 
barbaric frenzy, until it seemed they might 
in truth scare the devils, or that they, them- 
selves, were possessed of them. The furious 
energy thrown into the dance held the spec- 
tators spellbound. With a flashlight I caught 
their photographs. As a devil-scarer a 
flashlight beats dancing, for the whole party 
Immediately decamped. 



a* 







Among the Mountains. 133 

From Kandy it Is a steady climb to Nu- 
wara Eliya. The railroad penetrates ravines 
and climbs mountain slopes — ever up and up. 
This Is the region of Ceylon tea — "LIpton's 
Best." As we went up the thermometer went 
down. When we reached Nuwara Eliya we 
were over six thousand feet high, — more 
than a mile. It was uncomfortably cool and 
rainy, but in the hot season it Is a favorite re- 
sort for the European residents to escape the 
heat of the lowlands. We had parted with 
the palms, but we made the acquaintance of 
the tree ferns and tea bushes. 

At the rear of the town is the highest peak 
on the Island, over eight thousand feet in ele- 
vation. The Cingalese, having plenty of 
time, call It PIdaru Talaga, but the Euro- 
peans cut it to Pedro. The view from the 
summit Is well worth the climb. Mountains 
and valleys, roughly tumbled, extend away 
to Adam's Peak. But our view was short. 
A fog from the ocean rolled up the valleys 
like a tidal wave, engulfing the lesser moun- 
tains and surrounding our peak as with an an- 
gry sea. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

CALCUTTA THE INDIAN BEARER. 

Calcutta is an English introduction to the 
real India to be found inland. It is associ- 
ated with the stirring deeds of the founding 
of the British Indian Empire. At this capi- 
tal Lord Clive, Warren Hastings and others, 
with far-seeing diplomacy and intrepid dar- 
ing, wove the nets and planned the cam- 
paigns that absorbed the native States one 
after another. 

Here was enacted the atrocity of the 
Black Hole of Calcutta, which led to the 
overthrow of Bengal, and the founding of 
the British-Indian Empire. In the early 
days when Calcutta was a mere trading sta- 
tion of the East India Company, the Nawab 
of Bengal, having made war on the station, 
threw one hundred and forty-six of the sur- 
rendered garrison into a cell eighteen feet 
square, ventilated only from a small window 
high in the wall. It was a sweltering night 
in July. The Nawab was deaf to the cries 
of the prisoners dying from suffocation. In 



134 



Orq 






H 




The Rules of Caste, 135 

the morning when the doors were opened 
only twenty-three remained alive. 

The news of the atrocity crept along the 
shore, and went out to sea. It reached Lord 
Cllve, commanding ^t Madras, and soon his 
little army, furious for vengeance, overtook 
the Nawab's superior force on the field of 
Plassey, annihilated It, and founded the 
British-Indian Empire. 

Since then the Nawab and his descendants 
have had a good deal of leisure time. 

On the site of the prison In which the 
atrocity was committed now stands the Brit- 
ish postoffice. In the yard Is preserved a bit 
of old pavement which, according to a brass 
tablet nearby, marks the site of the black 
hole. It Is a pity the walls themselves could 
not have been preserved like the residency 
buildings at Lucknow, for no monument 
however grand can touch the heart like the 
humble ruins where the sons of Britannia 
fought and died for the little green Isle In 
the northern sea which all English people, the 
world over, call home. 

We rode to the Botanical Garden where 
the celebrated great banyan tree spreads Its 
branches over many acres. It has over a 
hundred auxUlIary trunks, and Is still grow- 



136 Oriental Rambles. 

ing. On the return drive we visited the new 
Jaine temple, and found it a glitter of frag- 
ments of colored glass set in stucco, and sur- 
rounded by a garden littered with cast iron 
Venuses from Europe and porcelain dragons 
from Japan, all very new and tawdry. 

In Calcutta, according to the custom of 
the country, we were introduced to the Indian 
bearer or private servant. If one is to con- 
tinue to exist in India it becomes a dire neces- 
sity to employ a bearer who will wait upon 
you at the table, attend to your room duties, 
prepare your bath, brush and lay out your 
clothes, and be a general nuisance so far as 
his caste will permit. 

This wretched institution of caste is always 
in the way. Your bearer's caste may permit 
him to bring you clean water, but it will not 
permit him to empty the slops. He must em- 
ploy one of the Sudra caste to do that. The 
Sudra caste is the laborer, the tiller of the 
soil, creator of wealth; but it is forbidden 
that he acquire wealth or learning, or hear 
the reading of the sacred books. He and 
his children must forever continue despised 
Sudras. Caste is the strictest trade union in 
the world. If a Hindoo performs the work 
or assumes the privileges of another caste he 



I 



to 



^ 
3 







Signs of Prosperity. 13 7 

defiles himself, endangers his soul, and low- 
ers the standard of his next incarnation. He 
also postpones the time of his final Nirvana — 
a dreadful calamity, for next to curry and 
rice the Hindoo dearly loves rest. 

At night the bearer wraps himself, head 
and feet, in a blanket and lies before your 
doorway to guard you from robbery by any 
unauthorized person. That prerogative he 
reserves for himself. This is done, however, 
only in the legal and approved system of 
commissions. 

The poor Bengalese is a yellowish-brown 
creature with a striking array of white teeth, 
that Is, when they are not stained dark red by 
chewing the betel nut. His face displays a 
fawning smile that seems constantly on the 
point of disappearance. He wears a won- 
drous turban. A length of cotton cloth 
does duty as trousers by being looped 
around the thighs with one end brought up 
between the legs. Sometimes the other end 
is thrown over the shoulder; sometimes a 
white cotton jacket Is worn. The jacket In- 
dictates European culture. 

An Indian's prosperity can be judged 
by his avoirdupois. Prosperity and 
adiposity go together. If the man is 



13^ Oriental Rambles. 

poor his legs are thin, bony shanks with 

knobs at the knees. The calf is absent, 

but he is liberally supplied with feet that 

would leave large marks in the mud, with toes 

diverging like a chicken's. When he stands, 

he is inclined to cross his legs like a camp 

chair. When he sits on his heels he rests his 

knees comfortably in his armpits. Sometimes 

by some unaccountable trick of contortion he 

thrusts his knees entirely out of sight behind 

his shoulders, and then, viewed from the 

front, the feet seem to be attached directly 

to the body like a turtle's. If you see a 

pair of fat legs projecting from a loin 

cloth you know whoever lives over the legs 

is rich, because he is well fed. If he wears 

shoes, socks and Boston garters you know 

European culture has attacked his feet and is 

progressing upwards. 

Calcutta is sometimes called "The City of 
Palaces," owing to the large houses of the 
English officers. Their houses are necessari- 
ly large to accommodate the large number of 
servants it is customary to care for. This 
retinue or multitude must make a home seem 
like an institution. 

At sunset we drove on the fashionable 
boulevard beside the Hoogly river. At that 



The Drive on The Esplanade. 139 

hour it is thronged with equipages of the 
flower and chivalry of Anglo-Indian, Hindoo 
and Mohammedan aristocracy. The showy 
trappings of the horses and the gorgeous liv- 
eries of the footmen and outriders form a 
spectacle that cannot be equalled outside of a 
circus pageant. 



CHAPTER XXV. 

DARJEELING AND THE HIMALAYAS. 

In winter the plains of India are ter- 
ribly hot. Ordinary English is of no use in 
describing the heat of summer. 

We Americans are led to believe that 
Yuma, Arizona, is the hottest place in the 
world because it was a resident of Yuma, who 
having died and gone to Hades, sent back for 
a blanket. But compared with India in 
summer, Yuma is said to have a cool and 
salubrious climate. So the Anglo-Indian 
goes in summer to Darjeeling on the back- 
bone of the world, to cool off. We went in 
the winter for the same purpose. 

After passing through a tropical plain we 
reached the Ganges which at this point is a 
very wide river. During its passage on the 
steamer we enjoyed an excellent dinner. On 
the other side we took cars again, and were 
soon rolled in our blankets on the berths 
which let down from the sides of the cars. 

The next morning we were crossing a 
brown, dusty, barren plain with frequent 

140 



Mountain Climbing by Rail. 141 

groups of mud houses called villages. Dur- 
ing the rainy season the plains are green with 
wheat and barley. The rainy season is ex- 
pected to come once a year, but sometimes it 
is careless about it. They have a special 
God to look after the rain business, too, but 
he is a lazy, shiftless fellow, as likely to drop 
the rain into the sea or on the mountains as 
where it is most needed. 

About noon we reached the foothill and 
changed to mountain cars. These little cars 
are much like open trolleys. They are built 
very close to the narrow gauge track and arc 
pulled by a hysterical, little engine that makes 
a tremendous noise. 

We soon plunged into the forest, winding 
about the hillsides, climbing gullies, and ever 
turning and curving on a grade so steep that 
we could feel the cars lift. 

At one place we had the novel experience 
of being run over by our own engine. The 
train splraled around a hillock, like a snake 
chasing its own tail, and then escaped from 
the top by a bridge to the mountain side. 
We, in the rear car, saw our own engine cross- 
ing the bridge over our heads. 

Two men ran ahead scattering sand on 
the track. They filled their own baskets, too. 



142 Oriental Rambles, 

There is a story that once one fell asleep on 
the track while waiting for the train to over- 
take him and was run over. It was not true, 
but in other respects it was a good story. 

This is the region of jungles and snakes, 
leopards and tigers. From one of these 
lonely stations the message was once flashed 
to the railway headquarters in Calcutta, 
"Tiger on platform eating station agent; 
wire instructions." We know this is true be- 
cause Mark Twain invented it. 

We passed many tea plantations where the 
steep hillside had been terraced. The hill 
people have decided Mongolian features. 
They are heavily and dirtily clothed and 
wear fierce knives thrust in their belts. The 
women resemble North American Indian 
women in their way of dressing their hair 
in long braids, one falling in front of each 
shoulder, and in their features which are 
round, flat and copper colored, with high 
cheek bones. They carry incredible loads 
on their backs, steadied by bands across the 
forehead. 

We were away above the region of the 
palms, but the trees of the dense jungle were 
festooned with orchids. At times we caught 
glimpses of the plain of Hindustan; and as 




Himalaya Children. 



Sunrise in the Himalayas. 14 3 

we went higher it lengthened and broadened 
until it was spread out like a map, brown and 
smoky, and slashed here and there by the sil- 
very ribbons of the streams. Finally a bank 
of fog came rolling down the valleys, pour- 
ing over the cliffs like waterfalls and closing 
out the view. 

When we reached Darjeeling we were over 
a mile high. For the first time since leaving 
Japan overcoats were needed. We rode to 
the hotel in rikishas, along a path that al- 
most overhung a deep valley. I believe it 
often rains in Darjeeling, — the rest of the 
time it is foggy. Sometimes Nature runs 
out of fog, and then the mountains may be 
seen at their best. The buildings are mor- 
tised into the mountains, one end being 
plunged into the hillside and the other sup- 
ported on stilts as slender as Hindoo legs. 

From the hotel there was a stupendous 
panorama. Below yawned an abyss of a 
valley. Away down in its dark depths was 
a raging torrent. Across the valley was a 
tree-clad hill. Over its crest, far beyond, 
arose the rugged tumble of dark mountains 
whose cliffs and chasms were barred and 
spotted with fog banks. Still higher, far 
above the intervening clouds, a snowy peak 



144 Oriental Rambles. 

glittered with the whiteness of everlasting ice. 
This was Kinchinjanga, — over five miles 
high. Other peaks, scarcely lower, stretched 
a-vt^ay into the uncertainty of distance in a 
gleaming, jagged band of white. 

The next morning we arose at four o'clock, 
and before dawn were stumbling our way 
on horseback up the trail to Tiger Hill to 
see the sunrise on Mount Everest, twenty- 
nine thousand feet high, — the loftiest moun- 
tain in the Himalayas. 

When we reached the summit, gray dawn 
was just breaking. We were on a foothill 
of the first range. In the deep valley be- 
tween us and the main range the gloom of 
night still lingered. Beyond this murky 
chasm rose the abrupt walls of the Hima- 
layas, height on height, cloud-scarred, harsh 
and forbidding. Peak after peak in snowy 
confusion led afar and away into the western 
sky, until peaks and clouds blended in the 
gray of dawn. Cold, cruel, stupendous, 
these cloud-defying mountains crush the be- 
holder with their awe-inspiring majesty. 

No wonder the Hindoos located their di- 
vinities on these inaccessible mountain tops. 
Brahma, the Creator, — Vishnu, the Preserv- 
er, — and Shiva, the Destroyer, hold their 



In the Bazaars. i45 

courts there in greater seclusion than did 
Jupiter and Juno on Mount Olympus. 

In the east, beyond the purple plains of 
Hindustan, a crimson line appeared along the 
horizon. It broadened and lengthened and, 
flaming upward, crimsoned the edges of the 
clouds. Here and there cloud upon cloud 
was touched with gold and copper until the 
east became a crimson lake, with purple rifts, 
and golden shores. Then came a brighter 
glow with the glitter of polished brass, just 
at the horizon; brighter and brighter it 
gleamed, and a ray of sunlight shot straight 
to the snowy peaks, suffusing their snow-fields 
with a rosy radiance. 

In the native bazaars may be seen a few 
Thibetans and many strange people of the 
hill tribes. The women are heavily loaded 
with ornaments of silver and brass curiously 
set with turquois, malachite and agate. In 
these bazaars may be bought many strange 
and curious things, such as prayer wheels, 
idols, and charms made of human ashes 
from Thibet. These charms are carried In 
small boxes suspended from a cord around 
the neck. The boxes are sometimes of 
brass, and sometimes of tin taken from 
Standard Oil cans, — which shows how the 



146 Oriental Rambles. 

light of American civilization is penetrating 
the remotest regions of Asia. 

These hill people are good salesmen. 
When the traveler appears in the street the 
glad tidings spread rapidly. From doorways 
and booths come the traders with obsequious 
smiles, each with a curio of more or less an- 
tiquity half concealed in his voluminous 
sleeve. As each one offers his wares he ex- 
plains in broken English: 

"This Buddha brought from a monastery 
in Napaul.'' 

"This prayer- wheel was used by the Grand 
Llama of Thibet and smuggled over the bor- 
der." 

"This bracelet, very antique, was worn by 
the Squegee of Gazoozulum.'* 

Another serious old trader produced the 
short brass knife used by Buddhist priests as 
a symbol of office, and solemnly related this 
strange history: 

"Sacred knife not made by man, — no," 
and he rolled his eyes devoutly, "made by 
hand of God himself and dropped from hea- 
ven in a thunder-cloud to mountain top, where 
Grand Llama found it buried deep in rock. 
Grand Llama with it slew seven dragons of 
the air and then present to me, because I hon- 



A Brass God with a Carbuncle, 147 

est man, — not lie; but I, very poor man. I 
sell you for sixteen rupees." 

The Philosopher said I would be sold 
if I bought it; and as the story seemed 
the most remarkable thing about it, I kept the 
story and returned the knife. The "honest 
man" would then take ten rupees, and finally 
would take an offer. 

There was a brass God from Thibet. At 
least by calling on the reserve stock of 
credulity wise travelers should keep on hand 
for emergencies, — I was willing to believe it 
came from Thibet. This brass idol from 
Thibet had a beautiful carbuncle (the jewel 
kind) on his neck. I longed to possess 
it and bargained for it according to custom, 
but did not buy it, because the owner would 
not come down the usual fifty per cent. 
When I was seated in the rikisha, he sadly 
shook his head and repeated, "God very an- 
tique." I expected he would relent, but the 
last I saw of him he was standing irresolute 
in his doorway with the idol in his hand. 
And so it passed out of my life forever, and 
I have mourned it ever since— that brass 
God from Thibet with the carbuncle on its 
neck. 

The ride down the mountain was a coast, a 



^4^ Oriental Rambles. 

toboggan slide, a shute the shutes, and a 
merry-go-round all in one. When dusk came 
on, a torch was lighted above the engine. 
That was thoughtful. It lighted up the for- 
est, gave the only light for the cars, and kept 
the tigers off. 

The next morning at dawn we had break- 
fast on the boat crossing the Ganges. The 
waters were glassy. The reflections of the 
trees on the low banks were perfect. Here 
and there widening circles of ripples showed 
where fish came to the surface to get the early 
flies. 

When we reached the opposite bank hun- 
dreds of natives were performing their de- 
votions and ablutions in the sacred stream, 
or sitting silently on their heels, their limbs 
benumbed by the chill. They were appar- 
ently engaged in sluggish contemplation. 
The sun came up a dull red globe, the Ganges 
responded, the mists of morning lifted and 
the natives one by one arose and went their 
way. 



CHAPTER XXVI. 

BENARES, THE SACRED CITY. 

Benares is celebrated in India as the most 
sacred of cities, — and elsewhere as the place 
where the chiseled brass comes from. 

Here we had the first glimpse of the real 
India of our dreams. Here are the remains 
of the oriental magnificence and wealth 
of Ormuz and of Ind. Here we saw 
the real Indian almost free from the 
influences that are leading him gradually — 
very, very gradually, — out of the darkness of 
superstition into the light of the new civiliza- 
tion. Here he is unpuffed up by the yeast of 
British culture. Here pilgrims come from 
the uttermost regions of India to worship the 
savage-looking idols, or rather worship before 
them, and to bathe in the sacred waters of 
the Ganges. 

As Mecca is sacred to the Mohammedan, 
so is Benares sacred to the Hindoo. A pil- 
grimage to these places is a virtuous and soul- 
benefiting thing, and greatly improves the 
chances of a happy hereafter. 

The first place visited was the Monkey 

149 



150 Oriental Rambles. 

Temple, dedicated to the Monkey God. 
Here innumerable monkeys make their home 
and a very good living, for it is the custom 
for visitors to buy nuts from the gate-keeper. 
The monkeys collect the nuts as you go in. 
They are very entertaining while the rations 
last, and then, like some human guests, they 
make off for newer friends, or scamper up 
the roof and deliberately turn their backs, cut- 
ting your acquaintance. 

In this temple we saw the ceremony of hair- 
cutting on a five-year-old girl. The child en- 
tered the court-yard in the company of par- 
ents, and relatives, followed apparently by 
friends and neighbors. In the rear of the 
procession came musicians with flutes, cym- 
bals and drums, and several nautch girls sing- 
ing a monotonous air with considerable vio- 
lence. All the musicians and nautch girls 
seated themselves in a circle on the pavement 
of the open court with the maiden in the 
center. 

The priest in ceremonial robes proceeded 
to shear her locks and shave her scalp. In 
the meantime the musicians beat the tom- 
toms, crashed the cymbals and brought forth 
ear-piercing shrieks from the flutes, while the 
nautch girls sang a weird chant. The mon- 



A Ceremonial Hair-Cutting. 151 

keys, perched upon the cornices, gravely 
watched the proceedings. The child being 
shorn and shaven, her garments were re- 
moved and others of gorgeous silk, resplen- 
dent with tinsel and spangles, were placed 
upon her, and garlands of flowers were placed 
about her neck. Then the nautch girls ceased 
their singing and danced a squirmy dance, 
waving their bare arms to lively music. 

The guide explained that this was a re- 
ligious rite preliminary to a betrothal, which 
left its real nature in considerable doubt. It 
was evidently one of the numerous religious 
shaves practiced upon the Hindoos. Many 
of the ordinary things of life are considered 
as religious rites, at which a priest must 
officiate, with his usual fee. Between fees to 
the priests, and taxes to the government, the 
thin-legged Hindoo has a narrow margin for 
curry and rice. 

Close to the Monkey Temple is the house 
and garden of the Holy Man of Benares. 
This man is a real God, and was, long before 
he died, for the good man has been dead and 
in Nirvana some time. He was a very 
learned Yogi, and in such a state of perfect 
sanctification that nothing whatever inter- 
ested him. The guide pointed out his flower- 



152 Oriental Rambles. 

strewn grave under a marble canopy and ex- 
plained that the accepted way for a good 
Hindoo to return to dust is by burning; but 
if one prefers to be buried it is allowable, pro- 
vided he is buried alive, for no dead body 
should contaminate the earth. Therefore, 
the sacred man being full of years, and near 
unto death, and knowing through his occult 
power the exact moment when death would 
overtake him, caused himself to be buried 
alive just one hour before he died. 

To the Philosopher's materialistic mind it 
was a little puzzling to understand how it 
was that he could be killed by burying just 
one hour before he died a natural death. The 
guide entered into a long explanation about 
the astral body and other things theosophical, 
trying to make the point clear to the Philoso- 
pher, but all that he seemed to grasp was that 
the man was dead, and that it cost something 
to see where he was buried. 

The Temple of the Sacred Bulls Is a place 
that fortunately can be viewed by unbelievers 
from a platform. The Philosopher desired 
to get a nearer photograph of the sacred 
beasts in their sanctuary, but the floor of the 
temple, being a stable, was as dirty as neg- 
lect and wet weather could make It. After 



The Lingam and Triangle, 153 

long hesitation he resigned himself to the 
probably ruin of his shoes for the sake of the 
photograph, and proceeded to cautiously step 
down into the court; but an argus-eyed at- 
tendant saw his design and in great alarm 
stopped him, saying that the feet of an un- 
behever would pollute the place. The Phi- 
losopher desisted, but his feelings were hurt. 

These sacred cattle roam at will about the 
city, helping themselves to the best in the way 
of food from the merchant's supplies. When 
they blockade the narrow streets the people 
give them resounding thumps in spite of their 
sanctity, but they move out of the way with 
the deliberation and dignity becoming their 
lofty estate. The ancient wise men knew 
that by making them sacred they would pre- 
serve through any misfortune the species of 
this most useful beast of burden. 

The Golden Temple is a small affair but 
very sacred. It is overlaid, Inside and out, 
with yellow gold. We were not permitted 
to enter. 

Far more curious was the less pretentious 
temple dedicated to the Elephant God. In 
the center of the temple, on an altar, was a 
stone post called the lingam. Offerings of 
flowers were at its base. The Hindoo my- 



154 Oriental Rambles. 

thology ascribes sex to the creators of heaven 
and earth. The lingam represents the male 
element. The female element is indicated by- 
two interlaced equal-sided triangles forming 
a six-pointed star like a masonic emblem. Be- 
fore these altars the natives worship, gar- 
landing the lingam with flowers, and pouring 
upon it water from brass urns which they have 
brought on their heads from the Ganges. 

The most interesting part of Benares, and 
perhaps of all India, is the river front. Here 
is congregated all that is Indian in custom, 
architecture and religion. It is a very sacred 
spot, for here one of their divinities, the Ele- 
phant God, made his last appearance upon 
earth, and a river direct from Paradise finds 
its underground union with the Ganges. 

Benares is the most ancient city of India, 
and is expected to last until it becomes a part 
of Paradise itself. The city is so sacred that 
any person who dies within its limits will go 
straight to heaven regardless of his religion 
or the lack of it. It is a very popular place 
to die in. But the other side of the river op- 
posite the city is profane and accursed, and 
whoever dies there will be born again a jack- 
ass. 

So firmly grounded is this belief that while 



A Safe Place to Die, i55 

the sacred side Is crowded with palaces and 
temples and thronged with humanity, the op- 
posite side of the river, a few hundred feet 
away, is abandoned by man. One can see the 
jackals, wild dogs and other wild beasts 
roaming the barren sands in perfect security. 

The Philosopher had a new scheme. He 
proposed to lay out a first addition to Ben- 
ares on the jackass side of the river and boom 
it in true western fashion with brass bands, 
barbecues and auctions, and give a non-jack- 
ass insurance policy with every corner lot. 

Ridiculous ! Who ever heard of a non- 
jackass insurance policy? 

The Rajah of Benares has a palace on the 
other side of the river, but some distance up. 
He is, however, so suspicious of the location 
that whenever any of his household are taken 
ill they are hustled across the river to the 
guaranteed safe side to await there the re- 
sult of their disease. If they survive they re- 
joice that they have escaped the superlative 
joys of heaven, and give thanks for the cure 
to the prayers of the priest, but if they suc- 
cumb, the result is ascribed to the mysterious 
dispensation of an all-wise and unscrupulous 
providence. 

We took an observation boat and floated 



156 Oriental Rambles. 

down the river past scenes so strange, sd 
bizarre, that they baffle description. The 
river makes a majestic curve with Benares on 
the convexity. This is called Sheva's Bow. 
The level of the city is perhaps a hundred 
feet above the level of the river. The bluff is 
occupied by a continuous row of temples and 
palaces belonging to the various princes and 
rulers of the Indias; for this is the Newport, 
the Long Branch, and the Ocean Grove of 
the Hindoo world amalgamated into one be- 
wildering mass. 

At certain seasons of the year all good 
Hindoos, brahmin, prince or peasant, make 
a pilgrimage to Benares to worship and bathe 
in the Ganges, and to carry to their homes 
some of the sacred water. 

From the palaces and temples on the blufF, 
stone steps and terraces descend to the water's 
edge. These steps, or gauts as they are 
called, swarm with the multitude, robed in 
white and many colors. 

Standing waist deep in the water were men, 
women and children seriously performing 
their devotions. As the Hindoo walks down 
the steps into the river he clasps his hands, 
bows to the Goddess Gunga, dips his hands 
in the water and applies it to his forehead. 



The River Front as Seen From a Boat, 15 7 

breast, and mouth, as certain prayers are re- 
peated. At times the hands are clasped, or 
elevated, or the body bent in adoration. The 
devotions being completed, a brass urn is 
filled with the water, and he returns to the 
steps where he proceeds to wash his clothes. 
His winding sheet is removed, washed by 
whipping on the stones and trailing in the 
water, then dried in the wind. The winding 
cloth is then replaced around the body and 
the loin cloth surreptitiously removed and 
subjected to the same process. When In this 
manner his body, his soul and his raiment 
are cleansed, and he is ready to re-enter the 
streets, he approaches a priest who sits under 
a wide-spreading basket-work umbrella call- 
ing out incantations. He kneels before the 
priest and receives upon his forehead the 
mark in paint that signifies his caste and an- 
nounces to all the world that he has fulfilled 
his religious duties. He then departs up 
the steps carrying his brass urn of sacred 
water upon his head. 

We passed box-like pedestals standing on 
the terraces. These were the suttee towers 
where formerly widows burned themselves 
on the funeral pyres of their husbands. By 
the river bank were the earthly remains of a 



158 Oriental Rambles. 

few Hindoos, the men wrapped head and 
body in white, and the women in red winding 
sheets. Some were lying with their feet in 
the sacred stream, while others who had re- 
ceived the last rites of the river were being 
consumed on the funeral pyres. 

A Rajah was ascending the steps to pay 
his respects to a Holy Man. A gorgeous red 
cloak with gold spangles hung from his shoul- 
ders. An attendant held an umbrella-like af- 
fair over his head, and four guards marched 
behind. At the steps was moored the Ra- 
jah's boat, a two-storied affair, the upper deck 
shaded with awnings, under which a silver 
chair stood on rich rugs and tiger skins. 

Along the river bank could be seen those 
religious fanatics called fakirs or yogis. 
Some sat in profound meditation, their naked 
bodies and bowed heads covered with ashes. 
One, in whose dark eyes burned the fire of 
mania, darted about the throng in aimless ac- 
tivity. He was naked except for the most 
rudimentary loin cloth. His body was mark- 
ed in stripes with ashes, like a zebra, and his 
hair hung in matted ropes to the ground. 

One fakir has achieved earthly fame and 
spiritual credit as the standing man. He 
stood upon the left leg, the right foot resting 



5- 



?5 



2 
Si- 

b 

0" 




The Sacred Ganges. i59 

on the left knee. Both arms were extended 
straight up and clasped over his head. He 
stood upon a post in the water balanced like 
a stork. It was said that every day for years 
he had been in that position and no one had 
seen him move during business hours. Others 
attain a state of ecstacy and remain in a fixed 
position until muscular atrophy results. It 
Is a form of voluntary catalepsy possible only 
to those religious monomaniacs who have ar- 
rived at that beatific state by continuous auto- 
hypnotism. Some of the things they are said 
to do are apparently impossible, such as sit- 
ting or lying on beds of sharp tacks, or walk- 
ing in the fire without injury. These persons 
are revered as saints by the Hindoos. 

One of these saints sat alone on a post In 
the water. He wore a coarse brown cloak, 
and a little brown rag fluttered In the wind 
from a stick planted beside him. He was 
greatly respected. He was a continuous-pray- 
ing yogi. He prayed aloud, and whenever 
he bowed to the river he held his nose. This 
was not strange. Inasmuch as the river at that 
point had more the appearance of mullaga- 
tawny soup than a sacred stream, carrying as 
It did the city sewage and sundry vegetable 
and animal remains, for which the citizens 



i6o Oriental Rambles. 

had no further use. However, these details 
did not disturb the pilgrims, who strong in 
their faith and belief, considered nothing im- 
pure or unclean which had come in contact 
with the sacred waters. 

But, as I said before, this particular saint 
was holding his nose. As it is customary for 
travelers to ask questions of a guide whether 
he could possibly know the answer or not, we 
inquired the reason for the aforesaid nose- 
holding, and immediately struck a well of 
curious information. 

It appears that the Hindoo worship is very 
elaborate in its formality, and their Gods very 
particular about due respect being shown 
them, each requiring a special formality. As 
there are thirty-three millions of Gods, three 
million of whom have terrible reputations for 
revenge if slighted, it will be clear that it is 
not all jam keeping them good-natured. 

The guide said that when a Hindoo in the 
course of his prayers utters the word Brahma 
he must press the right nostril with the right 
thumb. When Sheva is implored the right 
forefinger must compress the left nostril. 
Vishnu claims another finger, and other Gods 
have reserved the remaining digits. When 
their names are uttered aloud, and in rapid 



Too Much Biography. i6i 

succession, the effect Is somewhat startling to 
the ear and shocking to the sight. 

The guide could not tell the Philosopher 
what Gods were appealed to when the thumb 
was apphed to the tip of the nose, and the 
fingers gently undulated, but after some de- 
liberation concluded that It might be an ap- 
peal to the Christian Gods as he had seen the 
rite performed among the English soldiers. 

This guide confidently assured us that he 
was a very truthful man, good Hindoo, very 
high caste, Brahma pundit caste, privileged 
to cook food for the high priests, and was 
above accepting presents for charity; but if 
we were pleased with his services he would 
not refuse a present in case such great lords 
as we should offer It, and he would thank us 
kindly, and appreciate It very much as he was 
a very poor man and he hoped we would not 
forget him. At that point the Philosopher 
remarked that would be about all the bio- 
graphy we cared to know, and he might there- 
after, as In the past, confine his remarks to 
history and fiction. 

The Mohammedan mosque whose two 
slender minarets are the most prominent land- 
marks In Benares, was built by the last Grand 
Mogul, a Mohammedan Emperor, who de- 



1 62 Oriental Rambles. 

stroyed a temple of Sheva to make room for 
it. The Hindoos believe it was this act of 
sacrilege which brought ruin upon him and 
his house. Along the river front are several 
half buried and ancient palaces destroyed by 
an earthquake. Our guide explained that 
foundations are insecure because the river 
from Paradise flows beneath, and if the gods 
were displeased they would now and then let 
a palace drop in. 






to 






Si. 
Co 




CHAPTER XXVII. 

LUCKNOW AND CAWNPORE THE INDIAN 

MUTINY. 

From Benares we crossed a monoton- 
ous plain of wheat fields nearing the harvest. 
When the grain crop is good there is plenty 
in India, but when the rains fail, as they fre- 
quently do, the poor coolie starves. Some 
important irrigation works undertaken by 
the government are expected to relieve the 
suffering, but India is generally hungry. Un- 
der the old regime the population was kept 
down somewhat by wars, thuggee, suttee and 
drowning of female infants, all of which have 
been put down by the English who prefer to 
dig canals for irrigating and let the popula- 
tion grow. 

It is a dusty, hot ride to Lucknow, enliv- 
ened by an occasional glimpse of an elephant 
laboring in the fields or playing omnibus for 
a family, groups of wild monkeys swinging 
from the trees, or herons stalking pompously 
through the ponds. 

In Lucknow we were reminded not only 
of the splendor of the Kings of Oude, which 

163 



164 Oriental Rambles. 

can be touched lightly as a thing apart, but 
of Anglo-Saxon suffering and heroism in 
connection with the Indian mutiny of 1857, 
which must bring to every English-speaking 
person a thrill of sympathy and pride. 

The defence of the English Residency 
against overwhelming odds, and the valor of 
the rescuing columns who cut their bloody 
way through hordes of rebels, are as heroic 
as any deeds since history began. 

The causes of the rebellion of the native 
troops were many. Perhaps one of the most 
important was insufficient regard given by 
the English officials for the rules of caste 
and religious prejudices which, to the Indians 
are more important than life itself. For in- 
stance the cartridges were coated with the fat 
of cows and sheep. To handle such animal 
products and especially to hold them In the 
mouth as the rules required was to be defiled. 
It took a mutiny to change that rule. 

The consideration given the religious sen- 
sibilities of the natives at that time is indi- 
cated by Bayard Taylor who visited India 
shortly before the mutiny and wrote : 

**In India all places of worship, except the 
inner shrines — the Holy of Holies — are open 
to the conquerors, who walk in, booted and 



The Relief of Lucknow. 165 

spurred, where the Hindoo or Moslem put 
their shoes off their feet. I should willingly 
have complied with this form as I did in other 
Moslem countries, but was told that it was 
now never expected of a European and would 
be. In fact, a depreciation of his dignity." 

The English Resident Agent occupied a 
mansion surrounded by the barracks of the 
native troops or sepoys in the service of the 
East India Company. At Lucknow less than 
seven hundred remained faithful. They, 
with about seven hundred English troops, 
intrenched themselves in the Residency 
grounds and gathered therein all the foreign 
residents and native sympathizers, men, wo- 
men and children, to the number of twenty- 
nine hundred souls. In this frail encampment 
they were besieged for nearly six months by 
fifty thousand fanatical rebels with artillery. 
The grounds were raked with musket bullets 
and the buildings riddled with cannon shots. 
The men lived day and night In the trenches, 
and the women and children In cellars and 
underground passage-ways. 

After three months the thunder of the guns 
of Sir Henry Havelock's relieving army was 
heard on the Cawnpore road. Foot by foot 
they fought their way to the Residency, but 



1 66 Oriental Rambles. 

arrived so weakened and decimated that they 
could only join the besieged garrison and 
await further relief. 

At last it came with Sir Colin Campbell's 
Highlanders. By forced marches in the heat 
of the Indian summer, during which the tem- 
perature ranged betwen 120 and 138 degrees 
in the shade, it cut its bloody tunnel through 
hordes of rebels by continuous fighting 
against tremendous odds. Nothing deterred 
them. After viewing the slaughter of the 
women and children at Cawnpore, their fury 
knew no bounds. It was a continuous mas- 
sacre. At last the Residency was relieved, 
but of the gallant band of twenty-nine hun- 
dred only nine hundred were alive. ' 

The Residency buildings remain as they 
were left by the siege, — crumbled, blackened, 
shot-riddled ruins, — gradually being over- 
grown with ivy — fitting monuments to Eng- 
lish valor. 

At Lucknow we got our first impressions 
of the glory of the Mongul Emperors and of 
the splendid palaces they built. The last 
Nawab, when reduced to semi-imbecility by 
dissipation, spent his time dancing the nautch, 
while the English annexed his kingdom, 
thereby adding another cause for the mutiny. 



The Massacre of Cawnpore. 167 

The Imambarra, the tomb of a Nawab, is 
a dazzHng white marble building capped with 
groups of white pavilions. In its gardens are 
fountains, and some British lions painted 
with stripes to represent tigers. The Indians 
do not understand lions, but have a whole- 
some fear of tigers. 

The massive and ornate Turkish gate, 
nearby, stands out, a shining white pile 
against the wonderful blue of the sky. In 
these interior cities the soot and smoke of 
burning coal are unknown and the buildings 
retain their pure, white beauty untarnished 
for hundreds of years. 

We stopped for an afternoon at Cawn- 
pore on our way to Agra. There is nothing 
to see at Cawnpore except the monuments to 
the garrison massacred during the mutiny. 
Here the garrison after a hopeless defense 
capitulated to the rebels, only to be murdered 
at leisure. Most of the women and children 
were kept prisoners until the rebel leader. 
Nana Sahib, realized that the English would 
retake the place. When the roar of their 
cannon drew near he ordered the prisoners 
slaughtered. Three Mohammedan and two 
Hindoo soldiers v/ere selected for the bloody 
work. With naked swords they entered the 



1 68 Oriental Rambles. 

inclosure where the defenseless women and 
children were encaged. When the scream of 
the last terrified woman was silenced; the sob 
of the last infant was stilled, they were 
thrown, the dead and dying, into a well, and 
when a few hours later the rescuing army 
came raging in, alas, there were none alive to 
rescue. 

About that court is now an octagonal 
Gothic screen of the purest white marble, and 
over the well stands a marble cross, and an 
angel with hands crossed meekly upon the 
breast. 

It was midnight when our train rolled 
across the iron bridge that spans the Jumna 
at Agra. In the moonlight we could see the 
swelling domes of the Jumna Musjid mosque 
marked with lines of red sandstone and white 
marble; and the frowning battlements of the 
great fort at Akbar, the greatest of the Mon- 
gul Emperors, — soldier, philosopher and 
law-giver. Within this grim fortification are 
palaces of such richness and beauty that only 
in the tales of the Arabian Nights can their 
equal be found. 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 

AGRA AND THE FORT OF AKBAR. 

In Agra, as In the other Interior towns 
of India, the foreign hotels are located In the 
cantonment, or district devoted to the bar- 
racks of the British troops, the residences of 
the officers, missionaries and foreign mer- 
chants outside of the native city. These 
quarters are very pleasant places In which to 
live. The semi-European houses are embow- 
ered In ample gardens bordering the broad 
streets. 

The hotels In central India are much alike. 
They have one story wings with porticos 
upon which open the doors of the sleeping 
apartments. These apartments are white- 
washed stone rooms, each with a window 
high up near the celling for ventilation, and 
a small one by the door to look through. 
There Is a narrow, hard bed with a Turkey 
red punkah swinging above It. The floors are 
stone or cement and a small rug tries to make 
It look cheerful. 

In the rear Is a dressing room and bath. 
The three-foot stone wall built nearly around 

169 



I 70 Oriental Rambles. 

one corner is not a fortification against an- 
other mutiny, but the bath compartment, and 
on its cold stone floor rests a three-shilling 
tin foot-bath — the storied tub of the English- 
man. Forty dollars worth of stone fence 
around forty cents worth of plumbing. It 
was aggravating. The Philosopher said: 

"While we are in Agra we should expect 
to be aggravated." 

A pun is a protozoic form of wit, and an 
incitant to crime. 

All through the chilly night the bearer 
sleeps on the portico in front of your bed- 
room door. In the early dawn he crawls out 
of his cocoon of blankets in which he has 
wrapped himself, clangs the tin tub on the 
stone floor, fills it with tepid water; brings 
chota hazrid, (early breakfast of tea and 
toast,) then sits upon his heels awaiting or- 
ders. About ten o'clock breakfast is served 
in the dining room. It is a substantial meal — 
if you get it — a contingency depending upon 
the agility and diplomacy of your bearer and 
upon the caprice of a not over scrupulous 
providence. That function being completed, 
the traveler delivers himself into the hands 
of the guide to be shown things. 

I had a theory that we should begin with 



The Palaces of the Moguls. 17^ 

the less important sights and work up by 
easy stages saving the Taj Mahal for the 
last, as a grand climax; but the Philosopher 
had in mind the old story of the Irishman who 
being invited to eat all he could at a 
restaurant, began at the top and ordered 
something in French. It proved to be soup, 
he ordered the next — that also was soup ; he 
tried again and drew soup, and thus proceed- 
ed until he had taken each kind of soup and 
was ready to burst. When he saw the really 
good things coming on for others, he remark- 
ed, as he sadly withdrew, " 'Tis the chance of 
me life, and me full of soup." Therefore, the 
Philosopher, for fear of being over-fed on 
lesser sights, went off alone to see the Taj 
Mahal, while I went to the fort. 

Akbar, the Wise and Great, founded 
Agra and built therein a fort seventy feet 
high and nearly tvvo miles around. In it he 
and his successors Shah Jehan, Aurenzebe and 
others built palaces as beautiful as dreams. 

As we entered the fort our carriage crossed 
an empty moat, passed under heavy arch- 
ways, through murky tunnels, and finally 
stopped before the Judgment Hall of Akbar, 
the Solomon of the East, the greatest of the 
prand Monguls. This hall Is a loggia open 



172 Oriental Rambles. 

on three sides. Colonnades of marble pillars 
support the groined marble ceiling. In the 
closed side is an elevated niche ornamented 
with mosaics of birds and flowers. This is 
the Judgment seat of Akbar. His conquests 
were of short duration. The Empire which 
he founded has crumbled to pieces; his palaces 
are now show places for tourists, but his laws, 
— the Code Akbar, — are still used in parts 
of India. The good men do lives after them, 
and the evil dies with them, — perhaps. 

We passed through a few rooms of the red 
sandstone palace of Aurenzebe and saw stone 
ceilings and walls engraved all over in the 
most dainty designs of arabesque and flowers, 
remaining as sharp and clear as when the 
sculptors completed their work three hundred 
years ago. In some rooms the painting and 
gilding on the sculptured walls are still bright 
and beautiful. 

The palace of Shah Jehan is of dazzling 
white marble cresting the red sandstone walls 
of the fort. There are majestic halls, airy 
pavilions, and sunken arenas where tigers 
and elephants fought for the amusement of 
the court; and the Persian gardens where the 
sprites of the harem played hide and seek 
among the rose and jessamine bowers. On 



H 






S 




The Fairy Grotto of the Mirrored Bath. 173 

three sides of this garden were their apart- 
ments. 

On a marble terrace overlooking the gar- 
den stands the black marble platform upon 
which the Great Mogul, the King of Kings, 
sat cross-legged on his jeweled throne, under 
a canopy of silken tapestry. 

The black marble platform Is now barren; 
on its beautiful polished surface is a red stain, 
and through its ponderous body Is a fissure. 
This is evidence of a miraculous manifesta- 
tion, for legend has It that the platform rent 
Itself in twain and wept blood, when the Ma- 
harretta conqueror ascended it, and again 
when an English Viceroy seated himself 
thereon. 

The Golden Pavilion, the Jewel Tower 
and the Jessamine Pavilion are tiny retreats, 
bird cages in inlaid marble, for the beauties 
of the harem. In the mosaic floors are sculp- 
tured basins for fountains of rose water, be- 
hind which colored lights were placed. 

There is the Persian pavilion whose roof is 
a single block of marble sculptured with a de- 
sign of Persian roses. From the capitals of 
the supporting pillars droop marble rosebuds 
so delicately beautiful that the soul of the be- 
holder sings with delight. In this pavilion 



174 Oriental Rambles. 

sat the beauties of the harem with silver rods 
and silken line, angling for gold fish in the 
fountain below. 

In the harem are the wonderful apart- 
ments of the mirrored bath. These rooms are 
as still and cool as marble caves. They were 
lighted only by many tiny lamps set in niches 
behind colored glasses. From the walls gush- 
ed fountains sparkling with the colors of con- 
cealed lights and falling in glittering cas- 
cades into marble pools to flow away, bab- 
bling from room to room over a mosaic bed. 

In such an enchanted grotto, with its silken 
carpets, its mellow lights, its splashing foun- 
tains, its heavy perfumes, and its myriad re- 
flections of the merry nymphs of the harem — 
the King was wont to take his recreation. 

In one of the rooms of the palace upon the 
ceiling is inscribed in Persian poetry: 

"If there is a paradise on earth, — it is 
here, — it is here, — it is here." 



CHAPTER XXIX. 

THE TAJ MAHAL. 

The drive from the hotel to the Taj was 
through broad streets bordered by trees. On 
approaching the entrance there appeared on 
either side massive ruins of caravansaries and 
palaces; and then came into view, an impos- 
ing building in red sandstone capped with 
numerous white marble pavilions. The 
building is pierced with an immense pointed 
archway, and is ornamented with bands, de- 
signs and texts from the Koran in white mar- 
ble. Noble as this building is, it is only the 
gateway to the garden of the Taj. I left 
the carriage and entered, and beheld in the 
distance a gleaming white bubble of a dome 
resting so lightly on a sculptured pile of mar- 
ble that it seemed to float in the air rather 
than press upon its foundation. Leading up 
to the Taj, through a grove of laurel and 
lemon trees, is an avenue of Italian cypresses. 
There is a mosaic pavement in this avenue 
and through its center is a row of fountains 
playing in a lily pool. 

The Taj stands on a marble platform as a 

175 



176 Oriental Rambles. 

jewel casket stands on a table, its eight sides 
carved and inlaid in black marble with Arabic 
texts from the Koran. Dominating the four 
smaller domes is the grand central dome, 
two-thirds of a globe, with the top sharpened 
to a point. At the corners of the masonry 
platform, but apart from the Taj itself, 
stand four marble minarets, like giant candles 
before a shrine. 

The Taj impresses with the magnitude of 
its mass, the airy grace of its style, and the 
detail of its carved and inlaid marbles. It 
is love at first sight for there is in the picture 
a charm which mere words cannot express. 
It is proportion, and proportion is art, and 
words are powerless before art. 

I sat on a bench in the garden and contem- 
plated its beauties, and they grew more en- 
trancing as the hours passed. The Taj is 
like a lover who at one moment commands 
with his over-powering personality and at 
another cajoles with a caress. At one mo- 
ment it seemed like a mountain of ice, at 
another an intangible cloud, at another an 
onyx casket inlaid with ebony. 

When Noor Jehan died following the for- 
tunes of war, with Shah Jehan in far Cash- 
mere, he vowed he would build for her a 



The Taj by Moonlight. i77 

tomb whose beauty could never be surpassed. 
For seventeen years, thousands toiled. At 
last when deposed and old and full of sor- 
row, Shah Jehan was near unto death in a 
narrow cell, where for seven years he had 
been a prisoner in his own palace, he begged 
the son who had deposed and imprisoned him, 
that he might see again before he died, the 
tomb of his Noor Jehan. He was carried to the 
jessamine pavilion under whose jeweled mar- 
ble arches he had known with her what joy 
it was to live; and breathed his last with his 
eyes resting on the marble domes that gleam- 
ed beyond the sandy bed of the Jumna. 
There his love awaited him, and there he 
rests by her side. 

I visited the Taj again in the evening, and 
sitting alone by the reflecting waters of the 
fountains, contemplated its beauty, gleaming 
white and pure in the magic of the pale 
moonlight. Then it seemed a pearl palace 
from the paradise of dreams; a fitting casket 
for Noor Jehan, the pearl of the palace, "The 
Light of the Harem," of Moore's immortal 
poem. 

On entering the Taj one marvels at the 
detail of the ornamentation. The light comes 
faintly through screens of marble filigree. 



178 Oriental Rambles. 

The sarcophagi of Shah Jehan and his 
Queen are in the center, inscribed with the 
ninety-nine names of God and extracts from 
the Koran. They are also inlaid with semi- 
precious stones, such as agate, carnelian, mal- 
achite, bloodstone, and coral in floral gar- 
lands. The lace-like marble screens that en- 
circle the sarcophagi, and the walls themselves 
are inlaid in Persian designs with the same 
beautiful stones. The wainscoting of mar- 
ble slabs of ivory purity are carved in relief 
with conventional designs of the lily, iris, tu- 
lip and primrose. 

There is holy calm and hush in the Taj. 
The mind is overwhelmed with its beauty and 
dignity. There is nothing gaudy; nothing 
inharmonious. With all its richness it con- 
veys an impression of purity and simplicity. 
It breathes of noble thoughts and a mighty 
love. Shah Jehan may rest content. The 
tomb of his well-beloved is not surpassed. 



CHAPTER XXX. 

FUTTEHPORE-SIKREE, THE DESERTED CITY. 

We drove to the deserted city Futtehpore- 
Sikree, built by Akbar. On a hill overlook- 
ing the fertile plains for miles and miles, 
stands a walled city with red sandstone pal- 
aces, and marble mosques with carving as 
beautiful as lace, and as perfect as when de- 
serted, over three hundred years ago. No 
conquering army has destroyed an arch. No 
vandal hand has marred a pillar. The rooms 
lack only furniture, rugs and draperies to make 
them again suitable for the throngs and 
pomp of a potentate. 

Kipling gives a perfect picture of the de- 
serted city in these words: 

"What do you think of a big, red, dead 
city built of red sandstone, with raw, green 
aloes growing between the stones, lying out 
neglected on honey-colored sands ? There are 
forty dead kings there, each in a gorgeous 
tomb finer than all the others. You look at 
the palaces and streets and shops and tanks, 
and think that men must live there, till you 
find a wee, gray squirrel rubbing its nose all 

179 



i8o Oriental Rambles. 

alone In the market-place, and a jeweled pea- 
cock struts out of a carved doorway and 
spreads Its tall against a marble screen as fine- 
pierced as point lace. Then a monkey — a 
little black monkey — walks through the main 
square to get a drink from a tank forty feet 
deep. He slides down the creepers to the 
water's edge, and a friend holds him by the 
tall In case he should fall In. When evening 
comes and the lights change, It Is as though 
you stood In the heart of a kIng-opaL A lit- 
tle before sundown, as punctually as clock- 
work, a big, bristly wild boar, with all his 
family following, trots through the city gate, 
churning the foam at his tusks. You climb 
on the shoulder of a blind, black, stone god 
and watch that pig choose himself a palace for 
the night and stump In wagging his tall. 
Then the nIght-wInd gets up, and the sands 
move, and you hear the desert outside the 
city singing: 'Now I lay me down to sleep,' 
and everything Is dark till the moon rises." 

The palace of Miriam, Akbar's Portu- 
guese Christian wife, has been refurnished as 
an official residence, and affords an example 
of how cozy and homelike these old palaces 
were. Akbar was, like Solomon, a very lib- 
eral man in religious matters. Himself a 



From the Mohammedan' s Standpoint. i8i 

Mohammedan, he took a wife from each of 
the religions of his dominions that through 
her each denomination might have a sure and 
and private means of reaching his ear. 

In the palace of Miriam is a fresco of the 
Annunciation. In the palace of another wife 
are frescoes of the Hindoo God, Ganeish; 
and in the others are illustrations of Persian 
poems. 

We noticed the frequent repetition In the 
stone carvings of the six-pointed star, or 
double triangle, similar to the emblem of 
masonry. But here it is used in its religious 
significance symbolizing the female element 
of the world's creation, as the lingam sym- 
bolizes the male element in the creation of 
all things animate and inanimate. This is 
one of the most ancient symbols in Brahmin- 
ism, and was doubtless ancient in the time of 
Solomon. 

Whether the Jews brought masonry from 
their captivity in Babylon; and if so, whether 
the Babylonians in turn derived it from the 
primitive religion of India, are questions 
which our Masonic friends may be able to 
answer. 

We also noticed carvings of the Greek 
cross. It is recorded that Akbar once replied 



1 82 Oriental Rambles. 

to the Jesuits who approached him : "What 
would you have? Behold! I have more 
crosses now on my palaces than you have on 
your churches." 

Many of us thought the Congress of Reli- 
gions held at the Columbian Exhibition was 
the first of its kind; but the wise Akbar held 
one in Futtehpore-Sikree over three hundred 
years ago. On the main gateway to the 
mosque, the most imposing building on this 
hill of palaces, is carved in stone the follow- 
ing: 

*'Jesus, on whom be peace, said: 'The 
world is a bridge, pass over it, but build no 
house there. He who hopeth for an hour 
may hope for eternity. The world lasts but 
for an hour; spend it in devotion; the rest is 
unseen.' " 

This is singularly like, "Lay not up for 
yourselves treasures upon earth where moth 
and rust doth corrupt and where thieves 
break through and steal." 

An intelligent and highly educated Mo- 
hammedan explained this surprising recogni- 
tion of Jesus in the following words : 

'Moham.medans recognized Jesus as one 
of the great Prophets, only below Moham- 
med and Moses in importance. Moses was 



From the Mohammedan's Standpoint. 183 

greater because he gave the ten command- 
ments, one of which Is continually broken by 
the Christians when they make graven images 
of Christ, Mary, or the saints, and bow down 
before them. We Mohammedans follow 
that law, and use no pictures or Images In 
our worship. We consider Mohammed a 
greater Prophet than Jesus because he came 
later and superseded him. Neither Jesus nor 
Mohamm.ed was a God, but only prophets. 
Our cry Is ''God Is God, and Mohammed Is 
His Prophet." If you should tell a Moham- 
medan that God could be killed by man, or 
that God died, and was dead for three days, 
he would say It is Impossible. God is immor- 
tal and therefore cannot die." 



CHAPTER XXXI. 

DELHI, THE DELIGHTFUL. 

Delhi is said to be the oldest capital in the 
world. It was the capital of an empire when 
Jerusalem was a barren rock. Within the 
area of ten miles square there are the remains 
of seven cities in various stages of ruin. How 
many have entirely disappeared no one knows. 
We entered the present city through the 
Cashmere Gate which was battered and 
scarred by English cannon during the mutiny 
when the city was retaken by storm. 

The old fort of Shah Jehan is not as inter- 
esting as that of Akbar at Agra, because 
much of it has been destroyed. The gate- 
way is gay with the capping pavilions in the 
light and airy style of the Moguls, and it is 
somewhat of a shock to encounter, the first 
thing on passing through this gateway, the 
modern barracks of Tommy Atkins con- 
structed in the cheapest and most unorna- 
mental manner. 

The Audience Hall of Shah Jehan has been 
whitewashed, thus making light of its dignity. 
Further on we passed through rooms where 

184 



Tumbling Tombs of Tyrants. 185 

the whitewash blunderer had committed 
desecrations equivalent to a crime. Entire 
ceilings in marble, exquisitely carved, then 
painted and gilded with masterly art, have 
been ruined by the whitewash brush. The 
English have attempted to repair the damage 
by a restoration, but the expense was so ruin- 
ous that it was abandoned. When one sees 
entire ceilings and walls where precious paint- 
ings in marvelous colors can still be faintly 
traced through the coat of whitewash, one 
wonders what manner of man could have or- 
dered such wanton destruction. Much of the 
palace has been destroyed to make room for 
barracks, but there still remains the throne 
room, the most beautiful hall in the world. 

From the marble floor rises a forest of 
marble pillars whose arches, inlaid and em- 
broidered with semi-precious stones, support 
a ceiling with myriads of pendants painted 
in green, azure and gold. The screens of 
marble filigree and the marble walls are in- 
laid with colored stones in garlands of 
flowers, — the leaves of malachite and the 
roses of coral or carnelian in the same man- 
ner as in the Taj Mahal. In this hall stood 
the peacock throne, a blaze of diamonds, 
sapphires, emeralds, rubies and pearls. The 



1 86 Oriental Rambles. 

throne was carried to Persia by the conqueror 
Nadir Shah. Only the marble pedestal re- 
mains. Once there was a massive silver ceil- 
ing, but the Mahratta conquerors melted it 
down for loot. When the beauty of the hall 
is still so great in spite of the pillage of 
many conquerors, what must it have been 
when Shah Jehan, in a cloak of scintillating 
diamonds, sat upon the peacock throne, sur- 
rounded by the splendors of the Mogul court? 
A ride through the ancient ruined cities 
about Delhi is full of the interest that attaches 
to the tumbling tombs of tyrants, and of 
mighty monarchs whose names are forgotten. 
There are ruins of observatories with as- 
tronomical and mathematical instruments 
and contrivances where, perhaps, the wise 
men of Chaladee studied astronom}^ and as- 
trology. Here Jey Sing, the royal astrono- 
mer who succeeded the Rajahs of Amber and 
founded Jaipur, reformed the calendar about 
1693. His astronomical observations were 
wonderfully accurate. The gnomons, dials, 
quadrants, and so forth, are on a gigantic 
scale, built of solid masonry. There are 
also many curious instruments whose purpose 
cannot be guessed. The "Wise Men of the 
East" were very real men. 



The Kutiih Minar. 187 

Eleven miles away is the Kutub Minar, a 
mighty tower, two hundred and forty feet 
high, fluted and banded with carving. Its 
origin is enveloped in mystery. In the court- 
yard of an ancient temple nearby is a wrought 
iron pillar older than Christianity. An in- 
scription in Sanskrit announces that it is: 
"The arm of fame of Rajah Dhava, who 
conquered his neighbors and won the un- 
disputed sovereignty of the earth." Who 
was Rajah Dhava? This is the only evi- 
dence that he ever existed. 



CHAPTER XXXII. 

A NAUTCH DANCE. 

I have seen a nautch dance. In my boy- 
hood I read the tales of travelers, and their 
descriptions conjured up in my imagination 
pictures of oriental luxury and delights that 
have never faded; therefore among the early 
inquiries I made in India was the question, 
"Where shall we see a nautch?" Everyone 
said "Delhi is the place. Delhi, the ancient 
capital; the center of wealth, art, poetry and 
pleasure." 

I had pictured to myself a marble court 
with Moorish arches, splashing fountains, 
mellow lights, rich rugs, divans, draperies 
and the voluptuous odors of sandal wood and 
attar of roses; and myself sitting cross- 
legged on a divan, smoking a hookah, what- 
ever that is, with rose water in the bowl, 
while slender beauties in gauzy draperies 
danced before me on silken rugs to the tinkle 
of castanets, the tremulous cadences of the 
lute and the soft tones of the lyre, as they 
did before Solomon and Shah Jehan. In 



188 



Expectation and Realization. 189 

fact, I had imagined myself a Great Mogul, 
or an oil painting. 

At last I saw the nautch. My curiosity 
was satisfied, but my soul was not. It is sad 
to lose our illusions, the most beautiful and 
perfect things we ever possess; and why we 
should ever want to is one of the fifty-seven 
mysteries of life. 

Arrangements having been made several 
days in advance for so important an event, 
we were ushered into a room furnished with 
the most complete barrenness. No, the 
room was not completely barren, for besides 
the European chairs, there were European 
chromos on the wall showing some highly 
colored horse races, and a lithograph giving 
us the cheering intelligence that *'Splittz 
Beer is Best." In addition there was con- 
siderable bona-fide Asiatic dirt. 

Ranged against the opposite wall were 
seven native musicians with strange instru- 
ments and an English concertina. When 
the music began, two girls appeared and 
lifted up their voices in song. They were 
wonderfully and voluminously appareled. 
They wore blue satin waists with long 
sleeves embroidered in gold. Heavy skirts of 
cloth of gold, very full, reached to their 



190 Oriental Rambles. 

ankles. The feet were bare, but were loaded 
with silver anklets and toe rings too numer- 
ous to count. Their heads and necks were 
roped with near-pearls and other jewels of 
more or less value. A shawl with golden 
fringe was twisted about the body, a corner 
of which was occasionally thrown coquettish- 
ly over the head. I had not seen so many 
clothes in all India. After the dance we saw 
these grand clothes being carefully folded 
and laid away, and the dancers went out into 
the street, dressed in the usual native cos- 
tume consisting of a skirt that is too short at 
the top, and a bust-supporting jacket that is 
too short at the bottom, thus leaving exposed 
a generous expanse of bare stomach. 

As I said before, they lifted up their voices 
in song. The song was not so bad, although 
we had no idea what it was about, but it 
seemed to possess the wild passionate thrill 
of an oriental love song. It had odd little 
quavers at the end of the measures, and con- 
siderable rhythm and swing. When they 
clasped their hands and rolled up their eyes, 
it was plain enough to me that they were 
making love, and I was enjoying it as such 
until the interpreter explained they were 
charming snakes. 



^ 



Co 









The Betel Nut Habit. 191 

Then they danced the ^'Thread-Making 
Dance" In which they carded imaginary 
wool, spun and twisted imaginary thread and 
made an imaginary garment. 

These nautch girls might be called pretty, 
with their round young faces, raven hair, 
rich dark complexions and languishing eyes, 
were it not for the betel nut habit. The 
crushed betel nuts were placed between two 
green leaves, with slaked lime for flavoring, 
and stowed away in their mouths in prodig- 
ious quantity to be vigorously chewed during 
the dancing, and shuttled about during the 
singing. Betel nut chewing may be well 
enough in its place, as there is said to be a 
place for everything, and, according to the 
Philosopher, a hot one for some, but it is 
unromantic in dancing girls. It is diverting, 
for it stains their teeth a dark red, the in- 
terior of their mouths black, and leaves high 
water marks about their lips and the trail of 
accidental overflows on their shapely chins. 

One girl fascinated me. She seemed to 
open her face in song, and as I gazed Into 
the black abyss, I wondered If the mass, she 
was so skillfully shuttling about to give the 
song half a chance to escape, would be lost 
to control and drop Into her larnyx, complet- 



192 Oriental Rambles. 

ing the strangulation, or whether it would 
safely slip down her gullet and be happily 
"Lost to sight If not to memory dear." 

The nautch dances were a series of postur- 
ings, attempts at dramatic expression, and 
while not lacking in grace, were, to us, 
ridiculous and monotonous. Doubtless they 
appeal to the oriental mind. They must do 
so; for they are the steady entertainment of 
millions of Indians, and have been for thou- 
sands of years. 

At last garlands of fragrant white flowers 
were hung about our necks, and the enter- 
tainment was over. 

As we passed out into the night through 
the court-yard, we experienced the ordinary 
odors of the Orient. It was not the sensu- 
ous perfume of my boyhood fancy, but the 
pungent emanations of goats, which accord- 
ing to oriental custom, pass their nights in- 
side the house. 



CHAPTER XXXIII. 

JAIPUR AND THE RAJPUTS. 

It is a tiresome ride over the burning, 
sandy plain from Delhi to Jaipur, the capi- 
tal of Rajputana, one of the few native 
states remaining nominally independent of 
the English. It is a vast, parched plain from 
which the sunlight is reflected in a dazzling 
glare. The car windows are provided with 
smoked glass, but the penetrating dust is be- 
yond the control of man. 

This part of India is the home of famine. 
Occasionally we passed a green plot of 
ground watered by a government irrigating 
canal, or well, from which water for irriga- 
ting is hoisted in leather buckets by oxen. It 
is said water may be found almost anywhere 
at no great depth, but rather than dig a well 
on land owned by the government, which 
takes most of the produce, the Hindoo lies 
down in the sun and sleeps and starves. The 
Indian dearly loves the sun. It is the only 
thing he enjoys that he gets much of. 

Here is an opportunity for the American 
well-driver and the wind-mill salesman, or 
would be if the Hindoo was commanded to 

193 



194 Oriental Rambles. 

buy, and had the money to pay. He has 
been governed so much that he does little he 
Is not commanded to do. 

There is an emaciated crowd of beggars at 
every railroad station. The country is full 
of pigeons. They walk the streets and flock 
on the roofs, but before a Hindoo will eat 
meat he will starve. His religious and his 
caste principles are stronger than his desire 
for life. The Hindoo is the easiest "dier" 
in the world. There is no humor in his life. 
It is a grim struggle and full of trouble. He 
bows before whichever of the malevolent 
Gods his fathers did, bathes in the sacred 
rivers, follows the inexorable custom of his 
caste, lives until he dies, — and the mourning 
is brief. He carves a hideous idol, puts it in 
a temple and worships it as a God, or the 
symbol of a God, according to his intelli- 
gence. The Mohammedan conqueror lifts 
his battle-axe and smites the idol, saying, 
"There is no God but God. No images must 
be made, for God is a spirit and must be wor- 
shiped in spirit." The Christian comes, 
and holding aloft the crucifix, tells the beau- 
tiful story of love, redemption and salvation; 
but the Hindoo can no more understand the 
beatitudes of Christianity than we can com- 



a. 

to" 

a 












Hindoo Characteristics. 195 

prehend the gloomy terrors of Brahmanism; 
and so, while the efforts of our earnest mis- 
sionaries are great, and their hopes are high, 
the results are a little discouraging. 

Though caste is undoubtedly a barrier to 
progress, it has its advocates. A very intel- 
ligent Englishman, long resident in India, ex- 
plained to us that caste, although cruel and 
tyrannous, is really an advantage to the 
country, as its laws tend to keep the immense 
population in order and discipline. It has 
served well each conqueror of India through 
all ages. It would be a bad thing for Eng- 
land or any other reigning power if caste was 
abrogated and all men were considered equal, 
free and irresponsible to the higher caste. 
Anarchy would result. English rule adapts 
itself to the observation, protection and eti- 
quette of caste. Although a Hindoo beggar 
might consider his cup defiled if the English 
Viceroy should drink from it, the English 
statesman says "It is well; so be it." 

And thus we see the anomaly of the Eng- 
lish, as a political body, defending caste and 
sending their oldest sons as soldiers to fight 
for it, and the English, as a religious body, 
sending their younger sons as missionaries to 
destroy it by the introduction of Christianity. 



19^ Oriental Rambles. 

It seemed that since Shanghai we had been 
traveling through a modified England, but in 
Jaipur, the capital of the independent state 
of Rajputana, we were at last away from the 
shadow of the English flag, if not away from 
its influence. 

Rajputana has its Maharajah, who sits 
In his harem, rides his elephants, parts 
his whiskers In the middle, and otherwise 
conducts himself as a progressive and sat- 
isfactory monarch. But he wisely listens 
to the voice of the English representative, 
who is at his right hand to give such 
advice as may seem good to the uncrowned 
English despot who resides In the Vice-regal 
palace In Calcutta. By following that ad- 
vice as the will of heaven, he Is able to con- 
tinue the enjoyment of his elephants, his 
French chandeliers, his wives, his many danc- 
ing girls, and his three hundred assorted 
beauties of the harem. He paves the streets, 
builds Industrial schools, dispenses grain to 
his starving subjects, names a museum Al- 
bert Memorial, paints "Welcome" on a hill- 
side in white kalsomlne, and sent an elephant 
to take our party to his old palace at Amber. 

The last Item alone shows he Is a first-rate 
king. 






s 




CHAPTER XXXIV. 

A TRIP TO AMBER, AND AN ELEPHANT RIDE. 

The eleven-mile ride to the deserted palace 
of Amber was in three chapters, carriage, 
ox-cart and elephant. During the first chap- 
ter we passed acres of prickly pears. This 
vindictive vegetable may be very well for 
hedges, but as a regular crop it is a failure. 
There are thickets of them occupying the de- 
serted gardens of suburban villas of graceful 
Saracenic architecture, which have long been 
abandoned by the owners to the doves and 
crows. Wild monkeys scampered about their 
roofs and commented on our appearance as 
we passed. 

When the road became bad and the coun- 
try hilly we changed to a bullock cart. It 
had no springs, but a good deal of green 
canopy. We sat cross-legged in the native 
fashion. The white oxen were very deliber- 
ate. They stopped so frequently, and looked 
back so reproachfully that I got off and 
walked. We climbed a narrow, desolate 
valley between rocky hills crowned with the 
battlements of the ancient palace. Passing 

197 



198 Oriental Rambles. 

through a gate whose crumbling wooden 
doors bristled with iron spikes, we saw the 
royal elephant awaiting us before the ''Am- 
ber Rest House." 

We had luncheon on the veranda. Before 
us was a narrow valley holding a glassy pond 
where ducks were swimming. In the water 
many storks were standing on one leg.* A 
few natives were performing their abolutions 
and washing their clothes on the sandy shore. 
Across the pond rose a hill. A road zig- 
zagged up its side to the castle, a marble 
palace on grey sandstone foundations. Still 
higher on the crest of the hill frowned the 
red sandstone fortress of the Rajput mon- 
archs of four hundred years ago. 

The road before our veranda had once 
thronged with the nobles of a gay court. 
Here came in triumph the conquerors of Del- 
hi, but now there came a different retinue, a 
sorry company of thin-shanked, starving na- 
tives with a flock of children. There is no 
race suicide In India, even In time of famine. 

These people respectfully touched their 
forehead and lips and rubbed their wind- 
distended stomachs In token of their need. 



*That is. one le.s^ for each stork. It is a foolish habit 
anyway. — G. W. C. 



The Amber Rest House, 199 

murmuring the while that we were their 
fathers, their mothers, their brothers, their 
masters and their protectors. A few coppers 
made them happy. 

And then came another class of beggars, 
the monkeys. They looked better nourished 
than the Hindoos and appeared happier. 
Wild animals are not afraid in India, because 
the Hindoos do not frighten or harm them. 
Even tigers are sociable — and very fond of 
the Hindoos. These monkeys came to us 
without fear and helped themselves to food 
from our hands. If they found a hand 
empty they gave it a slap and chattered an- 
grily. 

Some wild peacocks, also scenting food, 
came out of the thickets to watch the pro- 
ceedings from a respectable distance. 

A stone-laden camel strode by, led by a 
Hindoo, who salaamed respectfully. We 
knew by the mark on his forehead he was a 
worshiper of Sheva. The camel had a 
drooping under lip, and surveyed us with a 
stare of contemptuous hauteur. 

The royal elephant in the meantime had 
been breakfasting off a pile of tree branches, 
that looked more suitable for a stove than 
an elephant. As he picked it over hunting 



200 Oriental Rambles. 

for tender twigs, he seemed to say, "I eat this 
'breakfast food,' not because I like it, but be- 
cause my doctor recommends it." He was 
not a prosperous-looking elephant. His skin 
was too loose. But the Rajah had sent him 
expressly for us as he had for numerous other 
chance travelers, and will continue to do on 
request, if the elephant holds together, which 
on account of his generally moth-eaten ap- 
pearance is doubtful. He was a dilapidated 
and tumbled-down elephant with one tusk and 
the rheumatism. On his back was a howdah 
or "howdahdo," as the Philosopher called it. 
The mahout talked to him in elephant and 
prodded him in the neck. This seemed a 
good deal of liberty to take with an elephant, 
but he came down laboriously, trumpeting a 
protest. We climbed to his back by means 
of a ladder and he rose, one end at a time, 
rocking like a boat. Thus perched high 
above the earth we bobbed along and tried to 
adjust ourselves to the rolls and bumps of 
elephant gait. The Philosopher walked 
back, but I being both brave and lazy, re- 
turned via elephant. Mark Twain said he 
could easily learn to prefer an elephant to any 
other vehicle, but the Philosopher would pre- 
fer a goat. 








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The Royal Elephant, 201 

The interior of the palace is not equal to 
the peerless palaces of Delhi or Agra, or even 
to the imposing ruins of Futtehpore-Sikree. 
There is a many-pillared marble hall of audi- 
ence, and some rooms with thousands of tiny 
mirrors set in the stucco walls and ceilings. 
The light came through screens of marble 
filigree instead of glazed windows, and there 
were many niches in the walls for lamps to 
be placed behind colored glass. Here were 
the only old art windows we had thus far 
seen in India. They represent scenes from 
Hindoo mythology, and have strikingly bril- 
liant and beautiful reds, blues and greens. 
They are not fragments leaded together, but 
immense single panes, hand-painted, with the 
colors burned in. 

From the pavilions on the roof there was 
a comprehensive panorama of the deserted 
city. In the gardens no foliage shaded the 
marble walks, and in the fountains birds 
could find no drink. Away in the distance, 
through a cleft in the castellated hills, was 
the glimmering white sand of the desert slow- 
ly filling in upon deserted and desolate Am- 
ber. 



CHAPTER XXXV. 

BOMBAY THE CAVES OF ELEPHANTA. 

From the veranda in front of my window 
in the hotel I looked out upon a continuous 
pageant of oriental life. There were many 
nations in the Indias before the British con- 
quest. I think they were all represented in 
the procession that passed in the street, and 
besides there were representatives from near- 
ly every other people in Europe, Asia and 
Africa. Across the street was a park in the 
very center of the city. In the grassy shade 
native children, dressed like cupids without 
the quiver, romped and laughed in the way 
of children the world over. Above the bil- 
lowy green of the tree tops rose the familiar 
Gothic of the English church. 

In the shade of the park trees, the street 
entertainers held continuous performances. 
One Hindoo sat on his heels and rattled a 
gourd to attract attention. With him were 
two grave monkeys and a goat. The mon- 
keys would turn somersaults and go through 
the manual of arms ; and the goat would walk 
a globe for a modest consideration. 

802 



The Parsees and the Tower of Silence. 203 

Nearby was a snake charmer. He carried 
a bag of snakes and led a mongoose by a 
cord. He untied his bag and played a few 
weird notes on a reed; a snake came out, and 
coiling, inflated its hood. It was a cobra. 
His part of the entertainment was to fight the 
mongoose. A mongoose resembles a small 
coon. He has thick brown fur, beady, red 
eyes and a dissipated nose. He is a sort of 
thug among the snakes. He has a perpetual 
grouch and kills for the pleasure, — when he 
does not get himself swallowed, as sometimes 
happens. 

The Parsees are a noticeable people on 
the streets. They are descendants of the 
ancient Persians, and still follow the religion 
of Zoroaster, or fire worship, as it is some- 
times called. In Bombay they are the lead- 
ers in business, finance, education and phi- 
lanthropy. They live in handsome mansions 
on Malabar Hill, and in the afternoon their 
victorias may be seen among the fashionable 
throng on the Apollo Bunder Boulevard. 
Their women wrap themselves in yards of 
sheeny, thin silks after the Greek fashion. 
The men wear a peculiar hat, resembling a 
rimless silk hat with the rear dented in — a 
hat which if seen on Broadway, would lay 



^04 Oriental Rambles. 

its wearer open to the suspicion of having 
had a night out with the boys. 

The Parsees beheve the elements, fire, 
water and earth, to be sacred, and should not 
be defiled by contact with the dead. There- 
fore they place their dead on towers called 
"Towers of Silence" for the vultures to de- 
vour. 

A sail across the bay to the Caves of Ele- 
phanta brought us again to a shrine of an- 
cient India. This rock-hewn temple is one 
of many of the kind in India and Ceylon. 
The images and the columns were much dam- 
aged by the cannon of the Portuguese who 
took that means to teach the Golden Rule. 
The Hindoo name is "The Hill of Purifica- 
tion." The word Elephanta was adopted 
by the Portuguese on account of the colossal 
stone elephants that stood before the en- 
trance. These ruins, and the native temples 
in India generally, are now carefully guarded 
and protected by the Anglo-Indian govern- 
ment, in sharp contrast with the iconoclastic 
fury of the Portuguese. 

Bombay, like Calcutta, is so Europeanized, 
that having seen the real India of the interior, 
there is little to hold the traveler beyond the 
next sailing day. Consequently we were soon 



Farewell to India. 205 

again upon the placid waters of the Indian 
Ocean. 

Romance and beauty there is in plenty in 
India, but it is so deeply buried in degrada- 
tion and desolation that it does not appear at 
first glance. In time, when the unpleasant 
things have been somewhat obscured by a 
merciful forgetfulness, the poetry and subtle 
charm peep through the picture, and ever 
after we treasure the memories of the mag- 
nificent East, — the land of great things, good 
and bad, — the cradle of the human race. 



CHAPTER XXXVI. 

THE INDIAN OCEAN, AND THE RED SEA. 

The Indian Ocean in winter is an ideal sea 
for the smooth-water sailor. We remem- 
bered the tossing, cold North Pacific with a 
shudder. During the days the passengers 
played shuffle-board, quoits, poker and other 
deck games, or read and dozed in steamer 
chairs. In the star-lit evenings there were 
concerts, dances, flirtations and lemon squash- 
es to suit everyone. The shadowy fore-deck, 
or flirtation parlor, as the Philosopher called 
it, was a favorite retreat for young couples to 
study the sparkling phosphorescence of the 
waters as they curled away from the prow. 

In the early morning the sailors hosed 
down the decks. Then the men passengers 
went up in their pajamas and walked in their 
bare feet on the cool, damp deck, took deep 
breaths of the delicious air, drank their coffee, 
and envied the Lascar sailors who can go all 
day in bare feet and pajamas and sail such 
an ocean as long as they live. For days we 
saw no ships, — nothing but sea, and sky, and 
horizon, and the ruffled waters of our wake. 



Mount Sinai and Moses' Well. 207 

At Aden it rained. This is not mentioned 
as news, but as a marvel, for Aden is sup- 
posed to be the driest place on earth. It ap- 
peared like a mammoth ash heap. Somali 
boys came alongside and dived for coins. 
Negroes from Somaliland on the African 
coast, and Arabs from Aden clambered on 
deck to sell their ostrich plumes, eggs, bas- 
kets and other curios, but they were ordered 
off, and the hose turned on them to accele- 
rate their departure. 

As we drew towards the northern end of 
the Red Sea, a brown irregular line rose on 
the eastern horizon, and steadily grew until 
the Sinaitic range of mountains spread their 
barren and ragged outlines against the tur- 
quois blue of the Arabian sky. 

Mount Sinai, the mountain of the law, can 
be seen, so the mate said, for a few minutes 
at a certain point of the course, but like the 
proverbial golden opportunity, it is easily 
missed. The eastern shore stretched away 
in hillocks of drifting sand to the sun-baked 
mountains that are rocky and torn, like vol- 
canoes long burned out, and barren as the 
surface of the moon. 

Near Suez there is an oasis, a patch of 
green and a few trees on the sandy plain. 



2o8 Oriental Rambles. 

This Is Moses' Well, the place where Moses 
smote the rock and the water came forth, and 
behold it was bitter. The water is still bitter. 
It is now an Egyptian quarantine station, a 
bulwark for Europe against the plagues of 
India. Some of our fellow passengers who 
have been detained there said the accommo- 
datlons have not improved since Moses' time. 
Opposite the spring is the place in the Red 
Sea where Moses divided the waters, and the 
children of Israel passed over, dry shod, but 
Pharaoh's host was swallowed up. The mate 
said sailors often bring up on their anchors, 
swords, muskets, chariot wheels and things; 
but he did not have any for souvenirs just 
at that time. 

Moses divided the sea, but De Lesseps di- 
vided the land. When we sat at dinner in 
the saloon while steaming through the Suez 
Canal, we could look through the port holes 
on either side and see nothing but sandy des- 
ert. We went through the canal in sixteen 
hours. During the night our search-lights 
enabled us to proceed at the same speed as in 
the day. I was Informed the toll for our 
ship amounted to ten thousand dollars, 
which seemed incredible. 



CHAPTER XXXVII. 

HOW WE BROKE INTO EGYPT THE REWARD 

OF HONESTY. 

Port Said is supposed to be the wickedest 
city of its size in the world. It looked inno- 
cent enough with the shields of the various 
national consulates displayed from buildings 
along the water front. In the town the prin- 
cipal business seemed to be the selling of 
curios and antiques which looked suspiciously 
new. 

Here we disembarked for Cairo, but first 
we had to go to the quarantine station. The 
very sound of the word "quarantine" filled 
us with shivers of dread, and forebodings of 
evil, for we had come from plague-infested 
India, and had heard uncanny tales of Moses' 
Well, the quarantine pen and other Egyp- 
tian health resorts. 

The passengers for Egypt and their bag- 
gage, were loaded into boats, and the flo- 
tilla, tied together like canal boats, was towed 
by a hysterical tug up the canal a mile to the 
dreaded quarantine station. A dragoman 
h^d been sent to help us through, and he 



210 Oriental Rambles. 

stood in the prow of the boat like Washing- 
ton crossing the Delaware. He was to be 
our interpreter and protector, and when we 
looked upon him we were reassured, for he 
had a long cimeter, a fierce red face, and awe> 
inspiring clothing. He wore a blue Turkish 
jacket wonderfully embroidered in gold 
braid, and Turkey red cotton trousers with a 
lamentable absence of fit. They apparently 
were cut to fit a pear. Their voluminous 
folds were gathered around the ankles, but 
there was an appalling redundancy of seat 
which trailed in a pouch between his feet like 
the generous stomach of a goose that had 
overlaid itself. On the back of his head was 
a red fez with a flame of a tassel that snapped 
with the energy of his gesticulation. He as- 
sured us we were not to be detained, but only 
baked, boiled, steamed and sterilized for the 
public safety. 

The quarantine station proved to be a dock 
with a corrugated iron roof and a terrifying 
machine on wheels like an ancient locomotive. 
Into its fiery furnace an Arab was shoveling 
coal. Above was an oven about the size of 
a tourist, and from it came the sound of es- 
caping steam. That was the sterilization 
plant and they were ready for us. Some of 



Our Awe-inspiring Dragoman, 211 

us were nervous. The prospect for baked 
tourist was good. The native boys who came 
with us jumped overboard and escaped. 

A wordy war was going on between our 
dragoman and the Egyptian health officer. 
They talked in Egyptian and with both 
hands. It was plain they were very angry 
and swearing frightfully. What would we 
do without our brave defender! Finally he 
turned to us smiling and said: 

"It is all right; all they want is your soiled 
linen." 

Ladies who had looked bravely into the 
fiery furnace turned pale with dismay. They 
gazed at one another, but no one moved. 
They were paralyzed with fear. 

Cotton bags to receive the linen were 
handed around. The Philosopher from Phil- 
adelphia, being like all Philadelphians, strict- 
ly honest, opened his trunk and stuffed in his 
entire laundry. Another man compromised 
with his conscience by hesitatingly opening his 
handbag and surreptitiously extracting a suit 
of pajamas which he turned over to the 
strong arm of the law. 

In the midst of this turmoil, an experienced 
traveler, being a diplomat, if not worse, de~ 
nied that he had any soiled linen whatsoever. 



212 Oriental Rambles. 

Since India he had not even changed his shirt. 
It was a brave thing to say, but it seemed to 
go. It appeared natural enough to the 
Egyptians. They understood it. He was 
excused. Then a strange thing happened. 
Not another passenger would confess to the 
possession of a scrap of soiled linen, so the 
proceedings came to an abrupt termination. 

The laundry was returned dripping wet 
and steaming hot to the two honest men ; and 
then they had the reward for their honesty. 
They were required to pay a shilling for each 
article, which proved quite a tax on the very 
honest man — the Philosopher from Phila- 
delphia, who had given his all in the laundry 
list. He thought they should iron it for that 
amount. 

But our troubles were not over. We still 
had to run the gauntlet at the custom house 
before we could go up into Egypt land. We 
were towed to another dock, and our luggage 
dumped on the platform where the Egyptian 
custom officers lay in wait for us. 

However, they seemed remarkably mild 
and confiding for custom officers, for they 
were rapidly putting their chalk marks on the 
baggage of the entire shipload of passen- 
gers as they hurried to the train. There was 



At the Quarantine Station. 213 

no annoyance, no trouble in sight. It was a 
remarkably cheerful place — for a custom 
house. Our dragoman took possession of 
our keys, and remarked with a falling inflex- 
ion, as an eyelid slowly drooped, "No duti- 
able goods, I suppose." 

It was a mistake to have taken the Phi- 
losopher into the custom house at all. He 
should have been safely put aboard the train 
with a guide book and a cigar. It is strange 
how the habit of honesty will grow on a 
person. At first it may be indulged in as a 
mild recreation or dissipation, but the sen- 
sation is so strange and enticing that the 
habit grows until the victim becomes hope- 
lessly honest and in no condition to be trusted 
alone in a custom house. I saw the mistake, 
but it was too late ; he had made the fatal ad- 
mission that he might possibly have half a 
box of cigars somewhere in his trunks. 

The officer was plainly astonished at such 
an unusual admission. He was so skeptical 
about it that nothing short of seeing them 
with his own eyes would convince him that 
the statement was true. He demanded to 
see the cigars. That required that the trunks 
be opened, but through some mistake, our 
dragoman opened the wrong trunk. It be- 



214 Oriental Rambles. 

longed to the diplomat of the quarantine sta- 
tion, and he was displeased about it; for 
there, before the astonished gaze of the offi- 
cer, lay his forgotten dutiable articles — all his 
purchase and plunder of the "purple east" — 
silks, embroideries, tiger skins, and ivories. 
There was duty to pay, and perhaps, fright- 
ful penalties for having such a poor memory. 

The diplomat explained that he was only 
passing through Egypt; that rather than pay 
heavy duties he would express the whole lot 
through to London. It was no use; he had 
deceived the government; the government 
was angry and he must pay. The officer was 
positive about it. He said so in seven lan- 
guages and at last in English. Train time 
was approaching. We had missed our din- 
ner over this custom muddle and were likely 
to miss our train. The diplomat capitulated 
to Egypt and asked for the amount of the 
duty. 

The officer plunged an arm into one cor- 
ner of the open trunk, contemplated the oth- 
ers from a distance, and began to figure. 

''Never mind the harrowing details," said 
the diplomat, ''give us the terrible total." 

"Thirty-three piastres," declared the offi- 
cer, and proceeded to chalk all our trunks. 



At the Custom House. 215 

The diplomat was delighted, for thirty- 
three piastres are equivalent to only $1.65 in 
real money. 

As our dragoman got him into the diffi- 
culty he volunteered to help him out. "If 
you will all go on the train," he said, "I will 
attend to this business." 

We were well toward Cairo when the 
dragoman appeared to return our keys and 
report the trunks were on board. As the 
diplomat received his keys he said, "I will 
settle with you for the duties you paid." 

"I did not pay the duties," declared the 
dragoman. 

''Neither did I," said the diplomat. 

"Neither did I," echoed the Philosopher. 

"But who did?" 

"At any rate my conscience is clear," said 
the Philosopher. "It was my duty to declare, 
and their duty to collect. I have observed 
that after all, honesty is the best policy — if 
you are caught at it." 



CHAPTER XXXVIII. 

PORT SAID TO CAIRO. 

The ride from Port Said to Cairo is full of 
interest. Even the brown desert has a charm 
because it is so frankly and thoroughly a 
desert. Over that course through which we 
rolled so rapidly and comfortably in palace 
cars, have passed the hosts of conquering ar- 
mies. 

If the sands could speak, they could tell of 
conquerors, whose names were forgotten be- 
fore history was carved on stone. They 
could tell of Rameses and his triumph ; of the 
children of Israel brought captives in chains; 
of Moses, Aaron and David; of the fleeing 
Israelites, and the pursuing hosts of Pharaoh; 
perhaps of the Queen of Sheba journeying 
from her Arabian capital; of Cambyses the 
Persian ; Alexander the Great ; of the humble 
Mary and Joseph fleeing into Egypt with the 
Christ child; of Julius Caesar; and of Napo* 
leon pressing on to the seige of Jaffa, eager 
with ambition to found an Asiatic Empire, 
and repeat the conquests of Tamerlane. Per- 
haps if his plans had not miscarried, Europe 



216 



The Evolution of Civilization. '2.1^ 

would have been spared that carnival of 
blood during his revival of the Empire of 
Charlemagne. 

The peculiar natural conditions of the Nile 
valley were especially favorable for the early 
development of civilization. Upon the an- 
nual inundation of the valley depended the 
prosperity of the people. This fact, together 
with the mystery of its source, caused it to be 
invested with sanctity, and considered with 
reverence by the early Egyptians. On ac- 
count of the great fertility of the soil, a dense 
population could be supported. The neces- 
sity of controlling the currents, and the build- 
ing of irrigating canals, led to the develop- 
ment of the science of engineering. As the 
annual inundation obliterated the boundaries 
between the individual holdings, it became 
necessary to re-survey boundaries and keep 
permanent records. This developed the 
science of surveying and mathematics. To 
settle the disputes that would naturally arise, 
courts were established, and fixed rules, or 
laws, adopted. This developed a judicial sys- 
tem. To foretell the dates when inundations 
would occur, the phases of the moon and the 
constellations of the starry heavens were ob- 
served. Thus calendars were tabulated and 



2i8 Oriental Rambles. 

the study of astronomy was fostered. To 
record all these facts a system of written char- 
acters became necessary, and the priesthood, 
which was the learned class, evolved the writ- 
ten language known as hieroglyphics. For 
economy and convenience, a plant that grows 
plentifully in the lower Nile was used to 
make a surface upon which to write. That 
plant was the papyrus and the product was 
called paper. In this manner was laid the 
foundation of the political, legal, social and 
scientific system which we call civilization. 

Towards evening we saw a green valley 
ahead, and the glimmer of the waters of "Fa- 
ther Nile." Beyond was the Libyan desert, 
and on its edge were three pyramids like 
geometrical blocks. At last we were in Egypt, 
— the land of the lotus and papyrus, and the 
spell of its mystery was upon us. 



CHAPTER XXXIX. 

CAIRO AND THE MOSQUES THE PHILOSO- 
PHER OBJECTS TO MOHAMMEDISM. 

At Cairo the orient and the Occident meet, 
but do not blend. Each preserves its own 
characteristics. In the great hotels may be 
found European luxury to satisfy the most 
exacting of the wealthy tourists who find in 
the sunlight of Egypt refuge from the rigors 
of northern winters. 

Here the traveler may ride in a victoria or 
an automobile. If he prefers the oriental 
mode of rapid transit he may stride the di- 
minutive donkey, some of which are so small 
they have been known to walk out from be- 
tween the legs of a particularly tall tourist 
when he inadvertently rested his feet upon 
the ground. Or he may perch upon the apex 
of a camel and be shaken and groaned at by 
that supercilious and over-praised "ship of 
the desert." 

If he pleases the tourist may sail up the 
Nile in a dahabeah to Abydos, Thebes, 
Karnak, and Philae. Day after day he may 
laze in his hammock under deck awnings, and 

219 



220 Oriental Rambles. 

dream of the glory of Egypt that has depart- 
ed. He may bask in the warm sunlight and 
breathe the pure air of the desert. He may 
watch the passing dahabeahs propelled by 
lanteen sails or by men with long sweeps as 
in the time of Cleopatra. He may see the 
descendants of the ancient Egyptians work- 
ing at the shadoofs, or well sweeps, with 
leathern buckets by which water is raised 
from the Nile to the irrigating ditches. He 
may see barren deserts, brown hills, green 
meadows, palm groves, mud villages, and the 
endless procession of bare-footed women in 
flowing robes of blue cotton, coming to the 
bank, and carrying away urns of water on 
their heads. At his pleasure the tourist may 
moor his dahabeah at the bank and visit 
the native market places. He will see the 
wild Bedouins of the desert and the strange 
people from darkest Africa. He may see 
their native dances and be present at their 
festivals. He may explore ruined temples 
and subterranean tombs, and purchase scara- 
bees, statuettes and antiquities that may have 
been dragged from the tomb of a king which 
had been concealed in the hills for five thou> 
sand years, or may have been made in Ger- 
many last month. 



hi 

OK 






Crq 
?5 



^ 





Amusements to Please All, 221 

Cairo Is only an upstart city of a thousand 
years old, — a mere yesterday in Egypt. It 
was built by the Arabian conqueror on the 
ruins of New Babylon which had been founded 
by Cambyses the Babylonian. It contains the 
purest examples of Saracenic architecture, 
and is the center of education and culture of 
the Moslem world. In a few minutes walk 
from the luxurious hotels one may find quar- 
ters of old Cairo, where the Arabian civiliza- 
tion is hardly scratched. It is as it was hun- 
dreds of years ago. 

The traveler soon gets accustomed to see- 
ing mosques, for one is always in sight. We 
naturally dropped into them as we did into 
the temples of Japan, and the tombs in India. 

There is nothing more pleasing in archi- 
tecture than a Saracenic arch, nothing so 
graceful as a minaret. The heavy Roman, 
the ornate Renaissance and the classic Greek 
command respect and admiration, but they 
are the prose of architecture while the light 
and airy Saracenic is the poetry. The Sara- 
cenes built not so much to defy time and 
earthquakes, as to please the eye and cheer 
the heart. The style suggests happiness, song 
and laughter, the splashing of fountains and 
the perfume of flowers. It is not merely the 



222 Oriental Rambles. 

proportions that please but the exquisite art 
of the decorative finish. If you enter a mosque 
and behold the rich mellow tints of the 
tiles in the wall; the intricate arabesque of 
the ceilings ; the brilliant mosaics of the pulpit 
and prayer niche, with their geometrical pat- 
terns in ivory, ebony, jasper, and mother-of- 
pearl, you will say with the Moslem, "Here 
I will rest awhile and be content." 

The mosques are always open. In them 
are no images, no pictures, no seats; but the 
true believers are always coming and going. 
The Arab with his fine physique, his flowing 
robes and dignified turban commands respect; 
he is picturesque withal and looks his best in 
a mosque. He is becoming to the architec- 
ture and they combine to make the picture as 
it should be. 

The religion of Islam requires five things 
absolutely: prayer five times every day; the 
observation of bodily cleanliness; the pil- 
grimage to Mecca; the bestowal of alms on 
the poor ; and the keeping of the fast of Ram- 
adan, during which for forty days no food 
whatever must pass the lips between sunrise 
and sunset. All alcoholic liquors are strictly 
forbidden by Mohammed. 

When a follower of the Prophet desires 



Saracenic Architecture. 223 

to do a good act, he builds a mosque and set- 
tles upon It an endowment for Its support and 
maintenance. There are no regular congre- 
gations; everyone may equally enjoy Its ad- 
vantages. If the endowment falls It gradu- 
ally falls Into ruin. A good many seem to 
have failed In Cairo. 

To a Moslem a mosque Is more than a 
church to be used fifty-two times a year. It 
Is a house of constant prayer and a place of 
refuge. There he may rest and escape the 
mid-day heat. There he may refresh himself 
with food which he has brought, and quench 
his thirst at the fountain; the poor man may 
roll himself In his blanket and sleep; he may 
sew on his buttons and repair his clothing; he 
may read his book or study the Koran. 

From a balcony encircling a slender min- 
aret, one frequently hears the voice of the 
Muezzin calling the faithful to prayer. Five 
times a day he walks around the balcony 
chanting the famlHar cry, ''Allah Akbar; Al- 
lah Akbar; la Allah 111' Allah; Heyya alas- 
salah." ''God Is great; God Is great; there 
Is no God but God, and Mohammed Is his 
prophet; Come to prayer." 

The followers of the prophet enter the 
court and at the fountain wash their feet, 



22 4 Oriental Rambles. 

faces, and mouths. They enter the mosque 
barefooted, leaving their sandals at the door. 
Facing the prayer niche, which indicates the 
direction of Mecca, they pray to the One God 
— which in the Arabic language is called Al- 
lah, and in Hebrew is called Jehovah. The 
God of Moses and Aaron; the God of the 
Jew and of the Christian. 

Unbelievers in the Prophet are welcome to 
enter and remain as long as they like, the 
only requirement being their shoes must be 
covered by mosque slippers, which are fur- 
nished at the door. 

The Mohammedans come very near to 
following the injunction "Pray without ceas- 
ing." No matter what the work or business 
on hand may be, the Moslem, who follows 
the injunction of the Prophet, interrupts it 
live times a day long enough to turn his face 
toward Mecca and say a prayer. It is no 
strange sight to see a laborer throw down his 
tools; devote a few moments to his religious 
duty, then resume with renewed energy to 
make up for lost time. The merchant prays 
in his booth, the sailor on the deck of his 
boat; even my donkey boy ceased calling 
maledictions on the head of my donkey^ 
"Yankee Doodle," long enough to mumble ^ 



The Religion of Islam, 225 

prayer which I hope was a plea for forgive- 
ness. 

Our dragoman told the Philosopher from 
Philadelphia, that Mohammedism is still 
growing in Asia and Africa. He recited 
some of the Koran, declaring that in time all 
the world would become followers of the 
Prophet. I think he was trying to convert 
Phil, but the Philosopher thought such a re- 
ligion would be inconvenient for every day 
use, and that it would never become popular 
in America. 

"Imagine," he said, "the bulls and bears 
of Wall Street, the people in the department 
stores, or even the street car conductors, or 
the icemen interrupting their pursuit of the 
almighty dollar, five times a day — to pray. 
How could a religion become popular which 
requires a six weeks' ride on the hump of a 
camel across a burning desert to worship be- 
fore a shrine of Mohammed in Mecca, when 
there is a shrine of chance wide open in Sara- 
toga ; a shrine of beauty on the sands of At- 
lantic City; and a shrine of Epicurus at the 
end of almost any automobile run? The 
Americans will never submit to polygamy. 
What chance would a man have against five 
mothers-ia-law? Imagine the chaos that 



226 Oriental Rambles. 

would result if that command of Mohammed 
prohibiting alcoholic liquors was observed. 
How could we manage our elections? How 
would we keep our army of policemen busy? 
How would we fill our large and commodious 
jails? How could we even enjoy a good din- 
ner, or entertain our friends, the 'jolly good 
fellows?'" 

No, Mohammedism is not suited to the 
strenuous life of Europe or America. Still, 
with all our superior civilization we can learn 
something of the advantages of temperate 
living from the Orientals. 

** When at the bowrs deep brink. 
Let the thirsty think 

What they say in Japan, 
* First the man takes a drink. 
Then the drink takes a drink. 

Then the drink takes the man.^ '* 



CHAPTER XL. 

DONKEY BOY DIPLOMACY STREET PICTURES 

AN ANTIQUE UNIVERSITY. 

There is no better way to see Cairo than 
from the spine of a donkey. It is not grace- 
ful and not over-comfortable; for your don- 
key boy, who runs behind, will smite the 
beast more mightily than did Balaam; and 
Yankee Doodle, Bonaparte, or whatever his 
name may be, will cavort and trot with stiff 
knees until you plead for a slower pace. 

The names of these donkeys are wonder- 
fully contrived. They vary with the nation- 
ality of the employer. The shrewd donkey 
boys, who stand in front of the hotels, assign 
them names from time to time to please one 
and all. They are accurate guessers of na- 
tionality, and an American, no matter how 
English his pith helmet may be, or how many 
pugarees he may wind around his hat, is sure 
to be met with such salutations as "Please 
mister, mine good donkey; give you long 
ride; name 'George Washington,' or 'Yan- 
kee Doodle.' " But if a traveler comes along 
who bears the unmistakable signs of an Eng- 
hshman, they will say, "Come have nice ride, 

337 



228 Oriental Rambles. 

my donkey, name 'Prince of Wales' or 
'Gladstone.' " If one appears who wears an 
imperial and talks with his hands you will 
hear something that sounds like, "Allez mon 
chevalet; mon tres joli 'Bonaparte.' " If a 
man marches out of the hotel, talking in his 
throat and choking with languages, they will 
cry, "Das Asel ist nicht spitzpuperi gemacht, 
namen, 'Bismarck,' Hoch der Kaiser." And 
all the time it will be the same jackass by the 
name of Bill. 

Having mounted the donkey with the most 
attractive name you will see strange sights 
in the native quarter. Some streets are so 
narrow that only one donkey can pass at a 
time, and if you should meet another donkey, 
or rather if your donkey should meet another 
donkey, it would be necessary for one of them 
to squeeze against a doorway to allow the 
other to pass. As you proceed through the 
narrow streets the boy cries in Arabic, the 
warning, "Take heed, fair maid;" "Beware, 
O Chief," and passersby flatten themselves 
against the walls. The donkey picks his way 
among the crowds with almost human cau- 
tion, and apologizes with his gentle eyes if 
he crowds against a person. 

The vendors of drinking water and lemon- 



Seeing Cairo by Donkey. 229 

ade carry their goods in goat skins on their 
backs. They jingle brass drinking bowls to- 
gether, as they cry, "A drink for the thirsty 
— sweet water, O Chief — nectar for the 
faithful, — a drink in the name of Allah." 

The Philosopher says, ''If the custom of 
poetical cries for hucksters should extend to 
America, we may expect to hear: ''Peanuts 
good people, sweet fruit of the sand; how 
beautiful are the gems of Virginia. Peanuts 
O, small boy," and instead of the rancous de- 
mand of a rude iceman we will hear the gen- 
tle call, "Ice, oh beautiful lady; ice for the 
cooler; cold butter for the biscuits; winter 
frost for the summer nectar, ice, oh damsel, 
fair." 

The Arabic tongue is not only poetical in 
style but pleasing to the ear. Mohammed 
said, "I love the Arabic language because I 
am an Arab; because the Koran is in Arabic; 
and because Arabic is the language of para- 
dise." When printed it looks like shorthand 
gone wrong. Our numerals are Arabic and 
they are shorthand when compared to the 
cumbersome Roman. 

We visited the old university of El Azhar, 
the splendid. This school has been a center 
of Mohammedan learning for a thousand 



230 Oriental Rambles. 

years. During the fourteenth century It Is 
said to have had as many as twenty thousand 
students. Now It has perhaps five thousand. 
It continues to send Its graduates throughout 
all Islam from Samarkand to Philippopolls, 
and Treblzond to Timbuctoo, wherever they 
are. It seems like an Incredible distance to 
me. 

El Azhar Is conservative. Its curriculum 
Includes the Koran, which Is committed to 
memory, grammar, rhetoric, versification, 
Arabic and Persian literature, elocution, ora- 
tory, logic, mathematics, law and probably 
other subjects; but modern sciences and origi- 
nal research are sadly neglected. Tuition is 
free, and all students, may, if they like, sleep 
on the floor, eat their food, and have their 
heads shaven by the tonsorial artist within 
the courts. 

The students sit upon the floor and study, 
bobbing their heads. This swaying of the 
head Is a natural inclination of children the 
world over. Perhaps it helps to shake down 
the lessons on the principle of a grain hop- 
per, but in the Mussulman it Is a habit ac- 
quired by the rule that the head Is to be bowed 
every time the word Allah Is spoken. In the 
great court, the students sat on the pavement 



El Azhar, the Splendid. 231 

in groups surrounding the teachers, and as 
all studied aloud there was a constant hum of 
voices. 

At one side of the court there is an open 
hall whose roof is supported by one hundred 
and eight graceful columns of granite, mar- 
ble, and alabaster. Near the pulpit, two are 
set close together. There is a legend that 
only honest men can pass between them. The 
columns are well worn by those who have 
squeezed through. Our dragoman related 
the sad plight of a portly lady, with an hour- 
glass figure, who got stuck between the pillars 
at her narrowest point, and was extricated 
with considerable difficulty by a lot of alarm- 
ed students. He said the legend had nothing 
to say about women, so the portent was un- 
reliable. 

There is a fascination about the native ba- 
zaars which draws the traveler there many 
times. He may roam at leisure among cool 
labyrinthian passages protected from the sun 
by gaily colored awnings. The booths are 
wide open to the street and often no larger 
than American show windows. He may see 
the silversmiths, the brasscutters and slipper- 
makers, intent upon their work in the booths 
where their products are offered for sale. 



232 Oriental Rambles. 

The merchants, in their flowing robes and 
turbans, have plenty of time to smoke their 
water-pipes, drink their black coffee and 
gravely converse with their neighbors. 

In separate booths are displayed the rich, 
soft rugs of Persia; the gold and silver em- 
broidered veils of Cairo; the metal wares of 
Damascus; the turquois and pearl jewelry 
of Arabia and the ostrich plumes and eggs 
of Nubia. In the booths of the perfumers 
are the gilded vials of attar of roses from the 
rose gardens of Turkey, fragrant herbs from 
Persia, sandalwood from India, benzoin from 
Siam, and myrrh and frankincense from 
Arabia. Their sweet odors escape from the 
booths and perfume the mazes of the bazaars. 

At every turn is a new scene abounding 
with the colors which please an artist. It 
may be a mosque banded with red and white 
sandstone; a sculptured fountain of ablutions 
pouring forth its cooling waters; a slender 
white minaret against a background of a tur- 
quois sky; or perhaps, an unusually graceful 
mouchrabiyeh window whose intricate fret- 
work of cedar spindles clings to the wall like 
a swallow's nest. 

At the further end of the bazaars is one 
of the mediaeval gateways in the walls of 



In the Bazaars, 233 

Cairo. It is ornamented with Arabic inscrip- 
tions carved in stone. In its shadowy re- 
cesses, hung high and safe above reach, are 
old chains and battle-axes, reminding us of 
the middle ages when Islam triumphant was 
beating in the gates of Europe in the valley 
of the Danube, and on the sunny slopes of 
Spain. They remind us of the brave days 
of the Crusades, when Arabs and Turks 
crossed swords with Christian knights for 
the possession of the holy places of Palestine. 
Through that gate passed many a cavalcade 
of the Chivalry of Islam going forth in the 
panoply of war clad cap-a-pie in good Da- 
mascus steel, with mailed hands upon the 
keen swords of Toledo, and mounted on 
gaily caparisoned steeds of the best blood of 
Arabia. 



CHAPTER XLI. 

FROM THE CITADEL. 

Sultan Saladin, who captured Jerusalem 
from the Crusaders, built a citadel, and with- 
in it a palace, on the slope of the Mokattam 
hills overlooking the city of Cairo. Moham- 
med Ali leveled the palace and built on its 
site his mosque veneered with alabaster slabs 
and beautified with alabaster pillars. Its 
great dome, and slender white minarets rise 
above the froAvning battlements and are the 
most conspicuous feature of the city. 

Mohammed Ali was buried in his mosque 
in 1849 almost on the spot where he com- 
mitted one of the most terrible massacres in 
history. He was a progressive but ruthless 
man ; he did great things for himself and Inci- 
dentally considerable for Egypt. Although 
a Turk, and a Turkish viceroy, his am- 
bition was to make Egypt a great and In- 
dependent nation with realms from the Red 
Sea to the Atlantic, and from the Mediter- 
ranean to the source of the Nile. 

The Mamelukes were opposed to progress. 
They were an Influential military race. Away 

834 



Sunset from the Citadel. 235 

back in the thirteenth century they were a 
corps of cavalry made up of slaves sold to 
the Sultan of Egypt by an Asiatic Kahn. 
They were intended as a body guard to over- 
awe rebellious subjects, but in time they came 
to own their owners. At various times they 
seized the government and made their lead- 
ers sultans, and at all times were turbulent 
and dictatorial. 

Mohammed Ali, tiring of their opposition, 
invited four hundred and fifty of their leaders 
to a conference in the citadel. When they ar- 
rived, the gates were closed and all were shot 
from their horses except one who spurred his 
horse over the wall, falling what appears a 
hundred feet, and fled, miraculously escaping 
with his life. At the same time a general 
slaughter of the Mamelukes was ordered 
throughout Egypt. Such a carnival of mur- 
der followed as had not been witnessed in 
Egypt since the slaughter of the first born. 
After that Mohammed Ali developed his 
plans unhindered. 

From the citadel can be seen a panorama 
of Cairo which can never be forgotten. The 
best time to see it is at sunset when the pe- 
culiar azure and golden haze of Egypt add 
their magical charm to the picture. Nearby 



236 Oriental Rambles. 

are the half ruined tombs of the Mameluke 
Sultans, clustered upon the desert sand at the 
foot of the Mokattam hills. Stretching away 
to the north and south is the City of Cairo, 
thickly dotted with the swelling domes and 
tapering minarets of mosques. Midway of 
the valley flows the Nile. Its shining course 
can be traced far up and down, and on its 
surface can be seen the lateen sails of the 
dahabeahs. Over beyond the green valley 
is the brown waste of the Libyan desert 
stretching away in sandy undulations, into 
the golden haze of the distance. On the 
edge of the desert, as on a platform, stand the 
three pyramids of Gizeh. Their huge tri- 
angles notch the sky at the horizon, and their 
sides seem turned to dull gold by the sunset. 
Near the Pyramids crouches the Sphinx, gaz- 
ing back at us with the mystery of the ages, 
as it gazed back upon Moses, Joseph, Mary, 
and the sacred child, and St. Mark, who es- 
tablished the Christian church among the 
Egyptians; as it gazed upon Rameses, Pha- 
raoh, Cambyses, Julius Caesar, Cleopatra, 
Saladin and Napoleon; and as it will gaze 
upon ages yet unborn. 

How paragraphs rush to the pen and strive 
to be free, but I forbear, for who can compre- 



Sunset from the Citadel. 237 

hend six thousand years of the past? Who 
can conceive of the possibilities of six thou- 
sand years of the future? 



CHAPTER XLII. 

THE PYRAMIDS THE PHILOSOPHER MAKES 

SOME DISCOVERIES. 

The drive to the pyramids is across the 
Nile bridge, flanked by British Hons, and 
along a roadway embanked above the line of 
inundation and shaded by lubbuk trees. On 
the road we met many donkeys loaded with 
vegetables for the city markets, and camels 
almost enveloped in their load of green grass 
destined for fodder for "Yankee Doodle," 
"Bismarck," "Bonaparte" and the other don- 
keys with high sounding names that carry the 
tourists about Cairo. We met the Bedouins 
of the desert with long rifles across their 
knees, mounted on spirited horses. Behind 
them came camels shambling along under 
their loads of Bedouin women, veiled and 
heavily draped in black. 

There were also automobiles and trolley 
cars, but we ignored them, and mentally 
placarded them with the signs worn by the 
"supers'* in the Japanese plays when they are 
to be considered invisible. They have no 

238 



Mountain of Masonry. 239 

place in the memory picture which I wish to 
preserve. 

As we drew nearer the Pyramids, our re- 
spect for them increased. As their bulk grew 
larger in the perspective they grew in impres- 
siveness. When, at length, our carriage 
halted before the Great Pyramid, it seemed 
a colossal stone pile, a mountain of masonry. 
It has served as a stone quarry for the build- 
ings of Cairo with little more than scratching 
the surface. It has been robbed of the casing 
of polished granite which was covered with 
hieroglyphics. Its secret chambers have been 
discovered, and the mummy of its royal build- 
er dragged into the light much against his 
wish, but the pyramid remains to the ages the 
most stupendous structure erected by man. 

Its base is more than an eighth of a mile 
square. Its apex is over a twelfth of a mile 
high, and its covers thirteen acres. The se- 
cret passage to the interior was found on the 
thirteenth layer of stones, and the average 
height of each block of stone is nearly four 
feet. As an evidence of the mathematical 
and astronomical knowledge possessed by 
their builders, it is curious to note that the 
sides exactly correspond with the cardinal 
points of the compass, yet at that early day the 



240 Oriental Rambles. 

compass had not been invented. The diagon- 
al of the Great Pyramid projected, forms the 
diagonal of the second pyramid in the group. 
The narrow secret passage is built at the cor- 
rect angle to observe the pole-star from the 
center of the pyramid at a certain day in the 
year. The stone used was brought from a 
great distance on the other side of the Nile, 
and was probably transported by barges at 
high -water, or by canals built for the pur- 
pose. All of these facts are comforting to 
know. 

At present the Pyramids are owned by Be- 
douins who for a fee will pull and push the 
tourist to the apex, and for another fee will 
push him down again. Whether the charge 
is so much per person, or so much per pound, 
I did not learn, but the Philosopher discov- 
ered it was so much per push, for he un- 
knowingly had an extra pusher, and the 
Sheik reminded him of it when he came to 
settle. 

These Bedouins have camels to rent for 
the ride to the Sphinx. After the ride, which 
consisted of a boost, a groan, a jounce, and a 
get-off, the Philosopher proceeded to lead 
away the animal, thinking he had bought it; 
but the Sheik sent a dozen Bedouins to bring 



o 






^3 



a. 

to 




The Bedouins of the Sphinx, 241 

It back and collected a double fee for wearing 
out his camel without a permit. 

The Sphinx, which is carved out of the 
bed-rock of the plateau, has been subjected 
to gross indignities. The winds have buried 
its body with desert sands, which, however, 
have been partially removed. Its face has 
been used as a target for cannon practice with 
the result that it has lost the greater part of 
its nose, and has acquired a hare-lip. Its 
beard, for it was originally the likeness of a 
gentleman known as Amenemhet III, has 
been plucked and carted away to the British 
Museum. But in spite of all these insults it 
has never spoken except once when Ralph 
Waldo Emerson stood before it, and several 
persons distinctly heard it say, "You're an- 
other." 



CHAPTER XLIII. 

THE DERVISHES. . 

Once a week the "Howling Dervishes" 
and the "Whirling Dervishes" hold services 
in their respective mosques. "The public are 
cordially invited to attend." If the drago- 
man has provided a carriage with fast horses 
it is possible to see both in one afternoon. 
These dervishes are a Mohammedan sect 
sometimes called fanatics. 

We went first to the "Howling Dervishes," 
and found a throng of spectators, native and 
foreign, grouped around a court in the center 
of which was an elevated platform under a 
grape trellis. On the platform stood a cir- 
cle of dervishes repeating in unison with 
much explosive vehemence, "La Allah ill' 
Allah." Every time they said "Allah" they 
violently bowed their heads. The tempo set 
by the leader gradually increased and the 
bobbing of their heads became more ener- 
getic until their entire bodies swung back- 
ward and forward with wonderful rapidity. 
There was one who wore no turban and his 
long hair fairly snapped like a whip lash, as 



242 



The Howling Dervishes. 243 

it flew back and forth with his violent exer- 
cise. It seemed that they would never tire, or 
that they would fall from exhaustion. After 
some minutes, the time gradually retarded, 
and their movements became less violent until 
they were silent and still again. Again they 
walked around in a circle and prayed, then 
resumed their cries of *'Allah" and began an- 
other movement in which deep and rapid 
breathing seemed to be the object. 

One man especially interested me. It was 
he of the flying hair. He was perhaps twen- 
ty-eight years of age. He had a pallid, deli- 
cate complexion, sparse, curling, brown 
beard, and abundant wavy brown hair falling 
about his shoulders. His large brown eyes 
seemed to have no sin. The purity of his 
face, his devotional intensity and his spiritual 
expression would put any question of his sin- 
cerity to shame. He was a monk, an ascetic 
from Palestine. 

By a fast ride we were able to see the danc- 
ing dervishes. Their mosque at first glance 
had an irreverent appearance. The center of 
the building was railed off, and inside the 
railing were several dervishes, each spinning 
like a top by himself. No one interfered with 
his neighbor. With closed eyes and folded 



244 Oriental Rambles. 

arms, their leaded skirts standing out like 
round tables, they whirled until it would 
seem they must drop. 

These enthusiasts endeavor to induce a 
condition of ecstacy, hallucination, hypnot- 
ism, or trance, during which they see visions, 
and in which their souls are freed from the 
trammels of the body, and can soar to the 
realms of the blessed, peep into the courts of 
paradise, and commune with God. The 
"Howling Dervishes" adopt the method of 
violent movements of the head and deep 
breathing, the effect of which is to disturb the 
circulation of blood in the brain, and intoxi- 
cate with an excess of oxygen. The "Whirl- 
ing Dervishes" adopt the method of produc- 
ing the desired condition of mind by vertigo, 
induced by rapid and long whirling. The 
Hindoo fakirs produce the same condition by 
mere concentration of mind. 

This condition of perfect subjugation of 
self during which the spirit, or soul, or astral 
body rises triumphant over the earthly body, 
to see things unseen by ordinary mortals, is a 
state desired by enthusiasts of all religions, 
and accomplished in various ways. It is the 
condition that makes the acceptance of mar- 
tyrdom a trivial thing. Christian ascetics 



The World of the Invisible. 245 

have sought the same condition by fasting, 
prayer and meditation. 

The Persian astronomer-poet, Omar Khay- 
yam, expressed the purpose and his conclu- 
sion when he wrote, in "The Rubaiyat" 

** I sent my soul through the invisible. 
Some letter of that after-life to spell ; — 

And by-and-by my soul returned to me. 

And answered, * I myself am Heaven and hell.' 

Heav'n but the vision of fulfilled desire. 

And Hell the Shadow of a Soul on fire." 



CHAPTER XLIV. 

MEMPHIS HELIOPOLIS THE WISDOM OF 

THE EGYPTIANS. 

The Prophet Jeremiah wrote, "Noph, 
(Memphis) shall be waste and desolate with- 
out an inhabitant." His prophecy has liter- 
ally been fulfilled. There is nothing now to 
mark the ancient metropolis of lower Egypt 
but the fallen statues of Rameses II, the Pha- 
raoh of the oppression, which stood before 
the Temple of Ptah. 

That temple was the most important in 
Egypt, but its stones have been removed for 
the building of Cairo, and nothing now re« 
mains but the gigantic granite statue, forty- 
two feet high, of Rameses II and the mum- 
mies in the tombs of Sakkara on the edge of 
the desert. In the worship and ceremonials 
of the ancient Egyptians, bulls were employ- 
ed. They were considered sacred to Apis, 
and when they died they were mummified and 
placed in the subterranean tombs connected 
with the temples in granite sarcophagi, some 
of which weight sixty-five tons. 

It is an Interesting problem how such enor- 

248 



The Ingenuity of the Ancients. 247 

mous weights as these sarcophagi, the obe- 
lisks, and the mammoth statues, were trans- 
ported hundreds of miles from their quarries 
in upper Egypt. The statue of Rameses in 
the Rameseum in Thebes, carved from a sin- 
gle block of red granite, stood fifty-five feet 
and is estimated to have weighed eight hun- 
dred and eighty-seven tons. The quarrying 
and cutting of these blocks were done with 
tools of tempered copper, some of which 
have been found; but the secret of tempering 
copper is one of the lost arts, although known 
to the North American Aborigines. 

In the northern suburbs of Cairo is the 
site of the ancient City of Heliopolis, the 
sacred City of the Temple of the Sun, — the 
"On" of the forty-first chapter of Genesis. 
This was a center of learning in ancient 
Egypt — a sort of university town. Moses 
was a student there, and became learned in all 
the wisdom of the Egyptians. Herodotus, 
Plato and Strabo, journeyed there to study 
philosophy and history. Dionysius, an Egyp- 
tian astronomer at Heliopolis, recorded a 
darkness or eclipse on the date of the cruci- 
fixion on Calvary. Nothing now remains of 
that great city but an obelisk. Once there 
were many, but they have wandered far from 



248 Oriental Rambles. 

the temple of learning where they were 
placed five thousand years ago. One stands 
in Alexandria where it was placed before the 
palace of Cleopatra, one has journeyed to 
Central Park, New York, and another to 
London. 

We spent a day wandering through the 
corridors of the Gizeh museum, where are 
gathered the antiquities of Egypt in bewilder- 
ing profusion. There we saw mummies of 
Rameses 11, the conqueror of the East, the 
builder of temples, the greatest king that ever 
ruled in Egypt. He was the Pharaoh who 
''hardened his heart" against the Israelites. 
His features which are Avell preserved are dig- 
nified and commanding. The aquiline nose 
and broad forhead indicate a man of great 
mental force and determination. 

Here also is the mummy of Sethi II, the 
Pharaoh of the Exodus, the contemporary of 
Moses. How surprised he would be to learn 
that his kingdom and his people have passed 
away, and the spokesman of that band of 
Jewish slaves became the spokesman of God 
to a large part of the world; and that the 
Jews are still a distinct people and are re- 
markably prosperous. 

Old as Pharaoh is, he seems modern when 






o 

51- 



a 

S5, 



1^ 

Of- 



^i- 




Some Old Jokes. 249 

compared to the wooden statue standing 
guard nearby. This statue Is six thousand 
years old, two thousand years older than Pha- 
raoh and Moses, and the wood Is still well 
preserved. He Is not at all Egyptian In ap- 
pearance. It might be the likeness of a mod- 
ern bonvlvant or clubman. He has a jolly 
round face with a humorous, half-repressed 
smile. The Philosopher listening back six 
thousand years said he distinctly heard him 
laugh and remark, "That mother-in-law joke 
Is a good one, but here is a conundrum given 
me by old Cheops who has that pyramid job 
down Memphis way, 'Why does a hen cross 
the road?'" 



CHAPTER XLV. 

HOMEWARD BOUND. 

There comes a time in the course of travel 
when one has seen enough ; when the sight of 
a temple, or a museum, or an art gallery 
brings no thrill of joy; when the brain is tired 
and overcrowded with scenes and incidents 
too rapidly accumulated to be properly filed 
away in the index of memory. Then is the 
time to rest, — then the time to remember the 
motto of the monkeys of Nikko, ''See not too 
much, hear not too much, speak not too 
much." 

Once more we went to the citadel to see the 
sun set across the valley of the Nile. Once 
more, and this time by moonlight, we con- 
templated the Pyramids, and watched their 
triangular shadows lengthen on the desert. 
Once more we bent our inquiring gaze upon 
the sad, mysterious face of the Sphinx be- 
fore we could say farewell to Egypt, and 
farewell to the purple Orient and its strange 
people in the multi-colored clothing ; for when 
we should reach Europe we would again be 
among the people of our occidental civiliza- 
tion. 

•250 



Home, Sweet Home, 251 

As we completed the circuit of the world 
by sailing up New York harbor, Phil, the 
Philosopher from Philadelphia, gazed long 
and lovingly upon the "Gateway to Ameri- 
ca," and remarked, "After all, the best thing 
we have seen is the Statue of Liberty." 



THE END. 



EXTRACTS 

FROM 

HINDU LAL. 

A New Book in Preparation 

BY 

DR. G. W. CALDWELL. 



CHAPTER XII. 

THE BROTHERHOOD OF THE VOLCANO. 

We were well satisfied, the Professor and 
I, with our botanizing tour. With our lit- 
tle caravan of Gourka hill men and native 
ponies we had wandered over the ranges of 
the Himalayas studying and classifying the 
strange Flora with which the region abounds, 
and had finally arrived near the boundaries 
of the "Forbidden Land." 

We were passing, that morning, up a wild 
ravine where jungle grass and stunted shrubs 
grew thick, and lichens clung to the rocky 
banks. Before us towered the mighty moun- 

157 



158 The High Himalayas. 

tain — Jomo Kang Kar — "Our Lady of 
Snows," where the Gods and Goddesses of 
the Hindu mythology sit on their crystal 
thrones secure from mortal curiosity. Be- 
tween us and the peak, which has never been 
scaled by man, lay snow fields broad and 
deep, sending down their glaciers to glitter 
pale blue in the sunlight, and melt into tor- 
rents which falling in feathery foam thou- 
sands of feet over the cliffs formed the river 
which rushed past us to join with the sacred 
Ganges on the plains of Hindustan. 

In our travels we had learned from Ram 
Zan, our interpreter and guide, many secrets 
of the healing art unknown to the world out- 
side of the hills of India, and, as said before, 
we were well satisfied with the benefit that 
the sick and suffering would receive when we 
should return to civilization and make them 
known. 

Ram Zan was relating the strange stories 
of the Mahatmas, Yogis, Magi and Monks 
that have their habitations far in the wilds of 
these almost inaccessible mountains. 

"This path," he said, "is worn by the pil- 
grims who travel to the Monastery of the 
Volcano to be healed by Swaami, the Holy 
Man, whose fame is as broad as India. 



The Rescue of Hindu Lai. 159 

At that moment a cry was heard — the cry 
for aid of a man in terror. We seized our 
rifles and bidding our bearers follow, hurried 
up the ravine, answering the call. We had 
not traveled far when we saw crouching on a 
rock at the side of the ravine a tiger and a 
tigress. We three fired at the same moment, 
and the beasts sprang from the rock. One 
remained where he fell, but the tigress with 
a series of bounds crashed through the bushes 
and disappeared. 

"Here is the pretty pussy," said the Pro- 
fessor, when we reached our trophy. "We 
must now learn whether the proprietor of 
the cry is inside," but we were saved the trou- 
ble, for only a few feet away we found the 
man among the rocks where he had fallen. 
He wore the robes of a priest of the higher 
order. He was badly injured, having fallen 
from the rocks and dislocated a hip and re- 
ceived a severe scalp wound from which the 
blood was still flowing. 

We stripped his blood-stained turban into 
bandages, and by means of compresses and 
the icy waters, soon had the hemorrhage 
stopped and a neat bandage applied. Then 
we reduced the dislocation of the hip. The 
pain caused by such an injury and the manipu- 



i6o The Pain Plant. 

latlon of the bones Is such as to bring groans 
of agony from the bravest man, but the 
priest calmly chewed some leaves which he 
picked out of the bag suspended from his 
shoulder. He showed no evidence of suffer- 
ing. 

Ram Zan noticed this and called our atten- 
tion to the leaf which he recognized at once 
as a common umbelliferae. The priest ad- 
mitted it was the "Pain Plant" of which we 
heard In Nepaul. At a later time we had an 
opportunity of putting this plant to the test 
In our own party, and found to our delight 
that It had the power of controlling pain 
without affecting consciousness. 

In a short time the priest was strangely 
refreshed and strengthened. Through our 
interpreter he said: 

"I thank you, Sahibs. You have saved 
my life; I am your servant, Hindu Lai, of 
the Monastery of the Volcano. As you see 
I am unable to walk, and a wounded man Is 
an easy prey for wild beasts. I ask you to 
take me to the Monastery to-night." 

"But the Monastery," we protested, "is 
two days' travel over the mountain." 

"We will go by the secret passage," he re- 
plied. "In four hours we will reach the 



A Substitute for Food. 16 1 

Monastery. Swaami will not forget your 
service, and if you seek knowledge, as I be- 
lieve you do, since you were quick to detect 
the Pain Plant, you shall learn of the master 
what no man of your race has ever learned 
before." 

It was plain we could not leave him there 
alone, so we placed him on a pony and proceed- 
ed up the path perhaps a half mile, when at his 
direction we turned into a defile. As we pro- 
ceeded the defile narrowed to a cleft in the 
mountain, then abruptly terminated. Appar- 
ently we were in a pocket, and the only escape 
was to return, but Hindu Lai bade us pro- 
ceed to the extreme end of the cleft where the 
vines climbed thickly up the rocks. The 
vines proved to be only a curtain hiding the 
entrance to a cave. Inside of the cave were 
two hideous idols, with eyes of blood-red 
carnelian, in the posture of forbidding en- 
trance. 

Our Gourka bearers were plainly fright- 
ened. Only after long persuasion was the 
priest able to overcome their superstition. 
Apparently the figures served well the pur- 
pose for which they were designed. Still 
they reasoned that if it was safe to enter the 
cave at all, it had better be done with a full 



1 62 Through the Secret Passage. 

stomach, and they insisted on a halt for food. 

At this the priest demurred. He wished 
to proceed at once and as rapidly as possible, 
so again he searched his bag and brought 
forth another plant with a thick, glossy green 
leaf, and calling to the men in the native 
tongue, gave each a leaf and bade them eat. 
The faith of the Gourkas in the priest was 
remarkable. Each did as he was bidden. 
We also received a portion and ate it. It 
was strangely satisfying and seemed to ban- 
ish fatigue and hunger like the cocoa leaves 
which are chewed by the Indians of Peru. 

The Gourkas were now willing to proceed. 
We lighted torches which were found behind 
the idols and entered the cave. We passed 
along the lofty cavern between rows of idols 
that glared at us with blood-red eyes. Our 
voices echoed and re-echoed until they died 
away in a faint call from the recesses of dis- 
tant chambers. 

At length we emerged from the cavern into 
a circular valley surrounded by vertical cliffs, 
inaccessible except at one point where a path- 
way zigzagged up to the crest. 

"We have come through the secret pas- 
sage," said Hindu Lai. ''This valley is the 
crater of an extinct volcano. The cloud of 



In the Ancient Crater. 163 

steam arising yonder is from the natural 
hot springs, and nearby is the temple with 
the two colossal stone elephants before it." 

As we passed down an avenue we saw 
many strange people camped in the shade of 
the banyan trees. They were pilgrims from 
all parts of India, who had come to be cured 
at the shrine of Swaami, the Holy Man of 
the Himalayas. 

We halted at the gateway of the Monas- 
tery. Two attendants prostrated themselves 
before the priest, then tenderly lifted him 
from the horse and carried him in. We fol- 
lowed through an outer court brilliant with 
scarlet orchids, — through stone corridors, 
the walls of which were covered with astro- 
logical and mystical signs, — across a curious 
inner court, in the pavement of which a 
brazen sun was inset, surrounded by the 
elliptic, the signs of the Zodiac, and other 
emblems which we did not understand. A 
door mysteriously opened and closed for us. 
Our feet sank into the deep, rich pile of 
oriental rugs. The air became heavy with 
the odors of burning incense. A moment 
later we stood in the presence of Swaami, the 
Holy Man. 

He sat on a cushion, with his legs folded 



164 Swaami, the Holy Man. 

as a woman folds her arms. He was thin to 
emaciation and for clothes he wore only a 
loin cloth of pure white silk. Unlike other 
holy men of India we had seen, he was clean 
— scrupulously clean. His face was strong, 
and kind, and in his eye was wisdom and con- 
scious power. 

Behind the Holy Man stood an idol of 
terrifying aspect. Its eyes were blazing 
rubies and an enormous diamond scintillated 
on its forehead. The interior of its wide- 
open mouth was blood-red, and for teeth it 
had rows of jagged quartz crystals. Over 
its shoulder was a cape of human vertebrae, 
with a fringe of finger bones, and with a skull 
as a central pendant. 

Hindu Lai narrated the story of his mis- 
fortune and our timely rescue. At its end 
Swaami smiled upon us, and placing his left 
hand over his heart, touched his lips and fore- 
head with the fingers of his right hand, which 
we learned was the secret sign of the Broth- 
erhood. 

Attendants removed the bandages from 
Hindu Lai, and after washing the wound, ap- 
plied some aromatic balm. A tiny glass of 
red liquid was given him and in a few min- 
utes his weakness disappeared. 



Strange Power of Plants. 165 

*'By your kindness to me," he said, *'you 
have won what no man of your race could 
buy. It is the wish of The Master that you 
be shown the mysteries of healing, which 
throughout all ages have been reserved for 
the elect of the Brotherhood." 

A pilgrim was brought in, leaning heavily 
upon the arm of an attendant. His breath 
came fast and short and from his chest issued 
wheezing sounds. "Save me, oh Master, 
else I die. A demon is in my chest and he 
grapples at my throat. Drive him out, oh 
Master," he panted as he prostrated himself 
before the Holy Man. 

"Behold the herb the Master will give 
him," whispered Hindu Lai. "Note the 
round leaves and the purple veins. To it is 
given dominion over the Fiend of the 
Air. With it will the Master exorcise the 
demon and he shall trouble him no more. 
One leaf shall he eat at the rising of the sun 
and the going down thereof for the space of 
three moon cycles and he shall trouble the 
man no more." 

The pilgrim took from his finger a jeweled 
ring and placing it in the palm of the idol, 
passed out. 

Then came a man from Thibet, being car- 
ried in a chair. "Oh Master," he said, "the 



1 66 The Spirit Plant. 

wrath of the Gods rest heavily upon me. I 
can neither lift my right foot or my right 
hand." 

"By this," said Hindu Lai, "will the spell 
be broken. By this will be he healed. It is 
the Spirit Plant. Place your fingers upon it." 
We did so and received a sensation similar to 
an electric shock. 

"He who gathers it," continued the priest, 
"must needs be cautious. It was that which 
caused my fall from the cliff this morning 
when you rescued me. At the magic hour 
must it be gathered, for only then is the spirit 
upon it." 

He gave some leaves to the paralytic, and 
when he had eaten he clapped his hands for 
joy, and descending from his chair, took a 
heavy gold chain from his neck and placing 
it in the palm of the idol, went out praising, 
strange as it may seem, not the Holy Man or 
the remedy, but the idol. 

"These poor people," said the Master, 
"must have a fetish. With their eyes must 
they see a physical object, for their minds 
are not capable of comprehending the invisi- 
ble. Therefore do they bring their jewels 
and offer them to the idol, and it is well, for 
therewith may the brothers buy rice, and the 



Before Zarlon the All-Seeing. 167 

wise men spend their days in study of the mys- 
teries of Nature for the benefit of the people." 
**In this," he continued, showing us a red 
liquid, "are the elements of life, and it is 
capable of saving those suffering from dis- 
ease as bread saves those starving for food. 
With these elements Nature makes her re- 
pairs. My sons, in these mountains human 
life on this planet began, and in these se- 
cluded monasteries are secrets of Nature kept 
until the world shall be ready to receive them. 
They will be revealed to you when you shall 
become one of us, and shall have taken the 
oath of the Brotherhood before the blood-red 
eye of Zarlon the All-Seeing. The ordeal is 
prepared. The brothers await you in the 
Cavern of the Eternal Fire." 



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